Lonely Together
by Thoughtless4u
Summary: Loki escapes Thor's punishment and he's out to revenge the Avengers. How better than to hurt one of their own? Can the team work together again or will the events drive them further apart? Post-movie.
1. Chapter 1

**Shortly post-movie. Please Read and Review! Will be a multichapter fic through the eyes of all our favourite superheroes, or at least it will be as long as you want it to be :). Please do mind my grammar mistakes and teach me, since I'm not a native English speaker. I'm still learning :)**

One: Escape and Capture

"It's never too late, my brother. It's never too late to re-join the people of Asgard and stand beside me to rule with me. You can be my right hand, we can keep them at peace. Just say the word."

Thor looked at his brother with a deep passion, and Loki inwardly smiled. Thor, his brother, always the naïve one looking at the bright side of life. _This was going to be too easy. _

Loki tried to look as sad and honest as possible. "Yes, you're right, my brother. I don't know what got in to me. Fighting against the world, fighting against myself.. Because I was so lonely, Thor. I've been so lonely…" Loki saw his brother reacting exactly as planned, kneeling in front of him in his cell that had been his home for two months now. In those two months after Thor had taken him away from earth, back to Asgard to punish him, his brother had put him in this cell and never once came to visit him while the 'doctors worked on him'. He almost thought his blonde brother wasn't going to show up anymore, that he indeed was going to let him rot in this prison for the rest of eternity, when he finally showed up today. In his eyes, Loki immediately saw the desperate hope that he had turned into something good. Only thing was.. he hadn't.

The truth was, there was simply no room left for anything good. His mind had been consumed with the thoughts of ruling the earth and the humans, and he had been so close. If only those complete human freaks hadn't been standing in his way. The cast-offs of the planet, the few altered supernatural human beings calling themselves the Avengers. Bile rose up when Loki thought of that name.

The Avengers.

Now, instead of thinking about how to take over the planet, he had gotten completely obsessed with how to take revenge on those couple of hideous creatures on Earth, how to take back what they had stolen from him. Everything. To hurt them as much as they had hurt him.

And he knew just how to. If only he could find a way out of his current state.

Loki snapped out of his thoughts and was just in time to see his brother move even closer towards him, touching his bare shoulder. He almost puked when he saw the tears welling up in his brother's eyes. _How weak. _

"You won't ever be lonely again, my brother." Loki felt how easily his own fake tears came and continued his act even more fiercely.

"You've abandoned me. I felt desperate and alone. I didn't know how to act any other way then to try to be like you. To rule."

"You can rule with me. You won't have to fight for it anymore. We can stand side by side, just like it should be."

"You want that? To rule with me?" He let his tears now fall freely in order to completely convince his brother. And it worked.

"There's nothing I want more, Loki." He came closer and unlocked the chains around his hands and feet before standing up. He offered his hand.

"Come and be my brother again." Loki finally smiled.

"I've never been your brother." With that, he took Thor's arm and used all his force to throw him into the other side of the wall. He still had some strength in him and the blow momentarily kept Thor to the ground. While Thor still recovered from the unexpected turn of events, Loki made a run for it. He needed only one thing to get of this planet and back to planet Earth. The Tesseract. And he knew exactly where he'd found it. He knew still all the secret passages up to his brother's room, and he therefore made it there unseen and in no time. When he typed in the code on the keyboard on the bedside wall, Loki smiled again when the wall turned into a door and let him into the enormous lab that lay behind it. He walked towards the middle of the room and was greeted by the loveliest object in the whole universe. When he was only still few inched away from the Tesseract, he heard the scream.

"NO! Don't!" He turned around and was greeted by an exhausting Thor, a bloodstream trickling down on the right side of his head.

"Don't do it, Loki! There's still another way. You won't have to do this!" Loki grinned widely now, sure that his final goal was closer than ever. _My silly little brother._

"You know, Thor, what your problem is? You never stop believing in a better world for everyone. A world in which every single one of use can be free. Freedom it's what you call it. See this as an act of compassion to show you that you can stop believing now. Because there won't be such a world. It's not a better world, it's worse. They need to be ruled. And they need to be shown that stupid suits can't always save them. Farewell, my brother."

With that, Loki took the Cube and turned the handles on the sides. Thor desperately jumped on the spot where his brother was standing milliseconds ago, but landed on the floor instead. Loki was gone.

* * *

Although he now knew they'd never let him out of their sight, that they'd always know where to find him, Dr. Banner still tried to hide as far away as possible. Right after catching Stark falling from the sky, after being in control as the Hulk, he had taken off to nowhere in particular. He travelled deep into the jungle, through a searing hot desert, or just walking along miles and miles of deserted asphalt. As long as he could be alone. When he was alone, he at least couldn't hurt anyone. Everybody congratulated him after saving Iron Man's life, because they thought it was _him _inside of that green monster. But it wasn't. Or maybe for a moment. He doesn't know nor will he ever find out, because he simply didn't know how it happened. He usually doesn't remember anything while he turns into that other guy. It's for a reason that he calls him _the other guy_. Because it's someone else entirely who creeps up on him whenever he lets his anger slip, ruining everything in his wake. But suddenly he felt himself inside of him, just before he smashed that Chitauri snake thing into the ground. He _felt _that. He _felt _himself jumping into the sky in order to catch Tony. But as sudden as it had appeared, as sudden it had disappeared again. He didn't know how he had done it or how do that it again. If only he knew. If only…

He arrived at his temporarily home deep into the streets of Mumbai. India had been great before Romanoff had found him to be part of the Avengers, and he had found himself gone back to the country because it had been one of the few places he could be as ease. It had been four weeks since that last showdown and he had found a way to settle again. He had picked up his activities as a doctor and tried to teach the street kids some in his spare time as well. The nightmares were beginning to wear off, his mind now occupied with helping the poor people surrounding him.

He opened his door and was greeted by an empty house. Or rather, an empty room since you couldn't exactly call it a house. It was a small room with a little staircase leading towards a small stone floor where his matrass lay. His kitchen had merely a gas burner to boil some water or some soup, and the worn-out chair functioned as his couch. A long table in the corner of the room was his dinner table, although it had only been used as an emergency table for people who had been brought in here when they were dying or likely to be. Although it wasn't much, it felt like home.

Bruce kicked off his boots and dropped his jacket on the chair when he turned towards the gas burner to heat up his soup from last night. When he stood there waiting until it boiled, he thought about today's events. He delivered a baby, saved a child after it had been hit by a car and taught some basic mathematics to 10-year old children. All in all, a good day. He almost started humming when the front door opens. By now, he has gotten used to people to just storm into his house at any time of the day, since it's the only place the poor people could come to when they're sick.

He therefore didn't pay attention to the man walking into his home. Never saw or heard it coming. Just when he put his soup off the stove, he felt a large needle entered his neck vein completely. His instincts took the better off him and he turned around while ripping the needle out. In front of him stood Loki, smiling at him from the other side of the room, sceptre in hand, as healthy as ever. Although he felt the anger boiling inside of him, the other guy never came out. Instead, he saw his vision becoming blurry, black spots enlarging before completely blocking his sight.

"You…!" It was the only thing he could manage to choke out before collapsing to the floor.

* * *

**Please let me know if you like it! If so, how'd you like it to continue? Let me know your thoughts!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you all so much for your reviews, your story alerts and lots of reads! I will continue because of it :) **

**Enjoy this second chapter! And of course, don't forget to tell me what you think!**

Two: The Call to Stark Tower

Tony Stark found himself standing on the rooftop of his recenlty rebuild Stark Tower, watching over the city while sipping his drink. It had been a great couple of weeks after his battle with the Chitauri and the portal, his recovery being very fast and his moments with Pepper even better. He simply felt.. perfect. He hadn't felt this way since.. well, since ever, and he tried to enjoy it while it lasted. The only thing he did miss though, were the nice scientific conversations he had with Bruce Banner, otherwise known as the scary green monster, while they were talking about their Avengers' mission. He missed the intelligence of that man, the man who looked so calm but was filled with rage just underneath that thin layer of calmness. He not only missed his wits, but also just his presence. He had almost thought that he could've been friends with the guy, and not to forget that he came to the rescue while he himself was dropping out of the sky like dead weight.

Tony had tried to contact him, but soon after he had roared him back to life the Hulk fled the scene and never returned, not even as his Banner self, and clearly indicated that he didn't want to be found. Surely, S.H.I.E.L.D would had already have him back on their radar, but something inside Tony told him that getting in contact with him would only make it worse. Banner probably needed to find it out himself, how he suddenly could be in control while being Hulked out, something he was never able to before this mission started in the first place. And besides…

Who other than Tony Stark knows it all?

Stark slightly smirked at his inner conversation he was having when he heard Pepper walking over towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist. He felt her face turning into a huge grin while she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Isn't it great?"

"You mean the view? It's far better when you can actually _see _the Stark Tower, not standing on it. Kind of misses the point, don't you think?" Her face didn't fall.

"Aren't you always in for a remark.." He turned his face towards her now, giving her his mischievous smile she became so familiar with.

"You know what you've gotten yourself into, right?"

"I'm not complaining, merely stating a fact."

"Oh good, because if you would've starting complaining after I made you all this (he waived his arm all around the tower), you were probably in for a little punishment.." Her grin grew wider.

"In that case.. I'm complaining." He winkled his eyebrows.

"Just what I was thinking." He moved towards her, kissing her passionately, forgetting everything about the tower and the Hulk when he was completely lost in the moment. _Just like perfection should be._ He was ready to pick her up and carry her to their bedroom when Jarvis suddenly echoed through the building.

"Uhm, phone for you , sir."

"Oh Jarvis! Can't you see I'm busy right now? Let them leave a message." Tony continued to carry out his plan he had formed in his mind about what to do with Pepper, when Jarvis interrupted his thoughts again.

"He won't leave a message. Nor call back later. Nor wait to get called back later. Nor hang up. Nor leave you alone until you put Ms. Potts on the floor and answer him." Stark suddenly felt very agitated.

"Jarvis, isn't that a bit ru.."

"I'm quoting Nick Fury, sir. The man calling."

"I don't care who's calling." He had dropped Pepper now, but grabbed her hand while he made his way towards the door to leave.

"He says it's about Banner." Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. _He knew it. He should've gone to visit him. _Pepper felt Tony tighten his grip on her hand, and she gently touched his face with her free hand to get his attention. When he turned to look at her, she smiled her sweetest smile.

"Go." Tony struggled.

"But I want to be with you, do all sort of things with you and.."

"He probably needs your help otherwise he wouldn't have called." Tony Stark wasn't the man to show his emotions.

"Nah, Fury is a big enough guy to handle a green raging monster by himself. What harm can a Hulk to anyways?" She looked him deep in the eyes.

"I meant Bruce." His gesture softened, knowing any further arguments were futile. She was right.

"Okay." He kissed her again. "Thank you." She only smiled when she left him alone in the room.

Stark sighed before telling Jarvis to put Fury through.

"Stark? Stark, are you there?"

"It's actually my computer generated self, but it will suffice." You could almost hear the sigh on the other end of line.

"Look, Stark, I wouldn't have called you if they weren't any other way. I need you to come in."

"You said it was about Hulky."

"Yes, it is."

"So?"

"Look, it's better if you could just come in ASAP and then I can have the team together and tell you.."

"You either tell me now or go screw it." Nobody could miss the absence of wit and humour, and Fury immediately knew it wasn't an empty threat.

"Okay. Short version then. We were keeping track of him to see when Hulk would turn into Banner again and to see where he was going. But we were laying low and let him all figure it out himself, it was just for safety precaution and to know when.."

"You said short version?" Stark was playing with his glass, desperate to hear the real reason Fury was calling.

"We lost track of him two days ago." Tony felt the anger rise in him with each passing second.

"TWO days ago? Why didn't you call earlier?"

"We lost him before, a couple of hours, even a day. Just because of our own mistakes. Every time he would just show up somewhere though."

"And now he didn't."

"Now he didn't."

"Great. Just great." Stark hadn't been noticing that he was at the edge of breaking the whiskey glass into a million pieces. _He should've contacted him. Searched for him. Why didn't he? He could've easily found him, by his own means or otherwise through S.H.I.E.L.D. He shouldn't have let him leave him all by himself, or at least all alone with that monster inside of him. He had needed a friend. And didn't he save him? Why…_

"You could better put that glass down, sir." He was snapped back to reality when he heard Jarvis' voice.

"Stark? You're still there?"

"Yeah, yeah. So what happened?" Nick Fury cleared his throat.

"We don't know."

"What do you mean, you _don't know_?"

"We just lost track of him, disappeared from our radar. First we thought it was nothing, but when we hadn't found him after a day we started looking for him. When we went to his house, we found it empty, but with the gas burner still on, a pan of soup standing cold next to it."

"Hmm.. so he left in a hurry or was either taking by surprise." Tony stared into nothing in particular, temporarily lost in his thoughts.

"The team that went to his place found only one other thing odd." He straightened his back, somehow knowing what was about to come.

"They found a drop blood on the floor, with a giant needle lying next to it." Stark sighed heavily, feeling almost defeated.

"Let me guess, tranquillizer."

"Not just tranquillizer. Huge amounts of it. Enough to kill…"

"… A beast."

"Yeah." An awkward silence followed.

"Now you know. Are you coming in or not? Hello?" But Tony Stark had already fled the room, almost running towards his lab. He quickly activated his suit and Iron Man was gone in less than a minute, flying away from Pepper and the Stark Tower and towards S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, all the way mumbling in the air.

"Just hang in there, buddy. We're coming."

* * *

**It's time to get them together again!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Here it is, chapter three! Thank you all so much for the reviews and the tremendous amount of story alerts and for adding the story to your Favorite Story lists. It makes me extremely happy :) Please continue to do so! **

**And don't forget to enjoy!**

Three: The Realization

He was welcomed back into the world by a horrific pounding in his head like he had been thrown into a stone wall, head first. Or like he had been hit on the head a thousand times with a huge hammer.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

The pounding continued to make his skull vibrate in a slow pace, parallel to the rhythm of his heartbeat. Or at least he thought it did since he could feel his heart beat almost painfully hard inside his chest every time his head nearly exploded.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

In those first moments, the pain was all he could think about. Or to better say, preventing him from thinking at all. He squeezed his eyes shut in order to block out the pain but found out that it had the opposite effect and the pain only worsened. He tried to take in deep breaths, focusing on his breathing technique. Breath in, breath out. Only then he discovered he couldn't really control his breathing and that it was already very slow. He tried to inhale again but somehow his muscles didn't cooperate. Instead they just had a mind of their own so it seemed and his breathing continued to go on unaffected by his attempts. The breaths were slow and shallow, but just enough get the oxygen he needed.

Bruce then thought back about the slow rhythm of his heartbeat as well, and he started to count. After what felt like a minute, he made an estimated guess of around 50 beats.

_50 beats per minute._

His heart rate hadn't had such a low frequency since…

Since he had been tranquillized. God. Not again.

Suddenly, the pounding in his head came back full force when he remembered what happened before he lost consciousness. He was at home, watching his soup while it heated up, when he had heard someone entering his house. A needle entering his jugular. Ripping the needle out, seeing Loki standing only a couple of feet away from him, smiling, scepter in hand, healthier than ever. His vision starting to blur. Hitting the ground right after he felt his head bumping into his chair.

_Loki kidnapped him. Great. _

When his headache subsided again after some time, he carefully opened his eyes to try to take in his surroundings. He found it quite hard to do so since the room he was in was almost completely dark, the only light entering coming from underneath a big metal door. Although it looked strong enough, Bruce was sure the door wasn't at all Hulk-proof. He looked around and could just make out the stone walls around him.

Clearly his latest effort took its toll and his headache started to increase, his body feeling extremely weak and tired. He momentarily closed his eyes to regain some strength which took a worrying amount of time. When he felt up for the task, he looked down to see the damage done.

His suspicions were right.

He found himself sitting in a kneeling position, his body slumped down a bit, both his wrists chained to the floor on either side of his body. In the fold of his right elbow, a thick needle entered his vein, the skin around it looking red and furious. The needle was attached to a drip and Bruce followed it to see that the drip was attached to the right wall, unable to see the contains of what was entering his bloodstream.

Leaving the drip for now, he took in the rest of himself. His chest was bare, a stream of dried blood running down the right side of his torso, the origin of the blood probably being his head hitting that chair. No other wounds appeared and luckily his pants were still intact, the same pants he remembered wearing before Loki came, so it didn't appear he had Hulked out. Already his actions were too much since he felt his strength disappearing and again he had to sit completely still in order to regain some. It worried him to no ends that he felt so incredibly weak and tired after just looking around. He had no idea what was in the unknown liquid substance entering his body but it had to be very, very strong to leave him in such a state.

Strong enough to contain a huge green monster.

The problem was, he wasn't a green monster right now, just the scientist Bruce Banner, which meant the amounts of that liquid giving to him right now were way too high for his human form. He could only keep up with it for so long. And so he knew.

He had to stop that drip.

Because he hands were tied, he moved on the next option by trying to just rip the I.V. out with his mouth. But when his head had only moved an inch, it was pushed to an halt abruptly. The chain around his neck rattled.

In the next hour, or at least he estimated it to be an hour since he had completely lost track of time the moment his body had stopped cooperating, he tried to find out how much moving space he actually got.

It turned out to be even less than he had thought. His hands couldn't even reach his legs, giving him maybe two inches of freedom. The chains around his hands preventing him from straightening his back while the one around his neck kept him from bowing down. Whenever he tried, the chain tightened around his neck fast and suffocated him. The only option was to keep in the position he was in right now and he already felt his back protesting that position.

Again it had been too much and Bruce found himself on the edge of unconsciousness right now. The moment black spots started to appear in his vision he saw the heavy door open, a widely grinning Loki standing in the doorway with his scepter in hand. The light coming from behind Thor's brother hurt Bruce's eyes. He closed his eyes and immediately felt his headache returning.

When he heard Loki kneeling down in front of him he opened his eyes and the brother of Thor looked directly into his eyes, his' shining bright of excitement. Although Bruce felt the rage growing inside his mind, nothing happened. No increase of his heart rate, no fastening of his breathing, no growing of his muscles. He just sat there, completely still, his furious mind trapped within a terrible weak body.

He saw Loki smiling broadly and his hand grabbed both sides of Bruce's face and he squeezed it painfully. Only then the realization began to sink in.

He was in big trouble.

He was snapped back to reality when Loki spoke up.

"Hello there, _monster_. How are you feeling?" Loki's grin grew wider when Bruce put all his efforts in trying to speak.

"What are.. you doing.. to me?" He felt the amount of oxygen generating by his slow uncontrolled breaths being too little and he became short-winded.

"Didn't you already notice?" Banner wasn't ready to give up.

"What.."But he couldn't finish his sentence and could only stop and wait until his next breath. Loki was now laughing out loud.

"Ah, did it become too much for you to talk? Feeling out of breath, don't you?" Bruce narrowed his eyes. "Even becoming angry now? That's of no use, I thought you already knew that." Suddenly, Loki forced his hand deeper into Bruce's cheeks, thereby forcing the scientist to look at him once more.

"And I'm sure you already figured out that the liquid I'm giving to you is enough to contain the inner side of you, the monster everyone is so afraid of. I'm not really in the mood to deal with the Hulk, you see. But there isn't really a big difference between Bruce Banner and the Hulk, is there? Since you'll always be a freak no matter what you turn into." Loki saw the hurt evident in Bruce's eyes and he closed the distance between their faces so they were only inches apart.

"Unfortunately, the dose you're getting now could be a bit too much for your human side. Possible could have some side effects. Dysfunction of your muscles, including the muscles of your diaphragm and your heart. Lightheadedness, fatigue, vulnerability for infections. Not to mention.. hallucinations." Finally, Loki let go of him and stood up.

When he was already at the door, he turned around and spoke again before he left.

"Oh, I almost forgot. The side effects of the stuff will get worse when administered for a longer period of time. Better hope your friends come get you in time."

With that, he slammed the door shut and Bruce Banner finally gave in to the darkness.

* * *

**Please let me know what you think :) Reviews are of great importance to me! **


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you all again for the nice and helpful reviews and story alerts :) Thank you livingintheshire, I'll watch my grammar even more carefully now. And silence, hopefully this chapter gives you some more descriptions of all the characters.**

**Enjoy!**

Four: Reassemble

When Tony Stark entered the conference room at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, the other members of the team calling themselves the Avengers had already gathered around the huge oval table in the middle of the room. Stark had been at the HQ within minutes, speeding things up with his newly rebuild suit, but had found himself flying around for almost half an hour before he had finally landed in front of the entrance. He had done that because he was so utterly mad at Nick Fury that he had probably blasted his head off the first moment he had seen the eyepatched boss.

How could he have lost Banner so freaking easily? And missing for _two days?_

It was unbelievable for him to understand such mistakes were even made by S.H.I.E.L.D. itself, one of the largest law-enforcement agencies there was. But eventually it didn't matter how much he laid the blame with S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury, or anyone else for that matter. There was only one conclusion which made him become angrier even more, but this time at himself.

_Why hadn't he just searched for him?_

When his newfound rage was no longer directed at anyone but himself he had landed and walked towards his colleague superheroes, ready to go in with a blast.

"Well there, I can only imagine how much Banner's self-esteem would improve if he'd be able to see how quickly his superhero teammates responded after hearing he went AWOL." Stark theatrically rolled his eyes. "And we all know he could use some, hello."

The only response he got was Barton's eyebrow rise, Rogers' uncomprehending look, Romanoff's glare turning from confusion to full hatred and Thor's face staring at the ground. He turned around while smiling. He faced a very angry looking Fury. _Got you._

"Stark, what are you trying to say?" Barton's eyebrow.

"Fury, what's the guy talking about? What's with Banner?" Rogers' incomprehension.

"Someone took Banner? Why didn't you tell us, Fury?" Natasha's anger.

"I knew he'd pick Bruce.." Thor's staring.

Fury took a step forward and leaned against the conference table.

"I wanted to tell you when we'd all be united, but Stark beat me to it. Thank you for your input, Mr. Stark." Tony smirked contently.

"So are you going to tell us then?" Natasha shifted and was now leaning on the table as well, daring Fury with her glare.

"So the story is as follows. We were tracking Doctor Banner since he left after the mission a couple of weeks ago. Just for his safety as well as others. We lost him a bit more than two days ago. When we searched his house for any sign of him, we only found some blood and a large needle on the floor. We're trying to find out the contents of the liquid substance inside the needle right now, but so far we've only come up with one of the components being a strong tranquillizer."

Silence.

"Shit." Barton was the first to speak. His further thoughts were verbalized by his partner.

"So he has been taken by someone. Somewhere. For some reason." Romanoff could feel the anger rising inside her chest. Somehow she had developed a weak spot for Banner since the moment she had to retrieve him from India. Not because he could turn into a huge green unstoppable mindless rage monster, definitely not because of that, but because of the man he was while he wasn't that. Because of his human side, his doctor's instincts for helping people, the way he suffered because he had to deal with the Hulk. He was a vulnerable man, and therefore also a vulnerability. She didn't exactly know which one the reason was she felt protective of him. And now he had been kidnapped.

"Any leads on who has taken him and where to?" Steve Rogers was in full Captain mode now, completely focused on the case at hand. Of course it had stung when he heard Fury telling them the good doctor had been taken against his will, but he had immediately pushed aside the fact that their mission was now to locate and rescue one of their own, one of his _friends_. He couldn't think like that, the thought would only be standing in the way of finding him as fast as possible. No, he had to go straight to the point.

"Well?" Rogers' shot Fury an impatient look.

"We have some theories, but at the moment we don't know whe…"

"I do." The demi-god had been quietly staring at the ground since Stark's comment about Doctor Banner, completely lost in his thoughts. He felt the guilt creeping up on him, faster each minute that past. If only he had been fast enough. If only he would've been a little less naïve and hadn't believed his brother. If only..

"Thor!" He snapped back to reality and turned towards the voice screaming his name. He saw himself being stared at by five pairs of confused looking eyes, one pair of them very close to his' actually. Natasha was standing next to him, her hand on his shoulder.

"Thor! What did you mean by 'I do'?" She shook him a little, making sure his thoughts didn't take over again. He didn't dare look one of them in the eyes and therefore stared outside the window while he spoke.

"Yes, I do know _who_ took Doctor Banner. I also know _why._" The unusual team kept looking at him impatiently but waited none the less until he continued.

"I thought I had him. I thought I had him convinced to be a good man again. He once was, I can assure you that. But when I thought.. When I wanted him to join me at my side, he deceived me at his people. He found the room I kept the Tesseract and the sceptre in and made the portal before I could get to him." The next moments were a mess when everyone started to talk at the same time.

"Loki…"

"Of course.."

"How could you have been so blind, Thor? Couldn't you have seen it coming he would.."

"Did he tell you anything about his evil plans? What's he going to do with him?"

"He's probably heating him up, wanted him to Hulk out and kill everyone he wants to get rid of.."

"What if he's going to experiment on him? Kill him?"

"GUYS, GUYS! Shut it!" Captain America accompanied his raised voice with the sound of his flat hand hitting the table, and suddenly everyone stopped talking and looked at him dumbfounded.

"This is not going to work! We need to work this out!"

"But Loki took Banner!"

"It's happening all over again."

"I so want a good night's sleep.."

"STOP!" They all felt silent again. Steve breathed heavily now, a combination of his anger towards the whole situation and the dysfunction of this assemble.

"Thor.. You said you knew why he took the doctor. Tell us why." The rest of the team momentarily agreed with Rogers and were again staring straight to the Asgardian. This time, the demi-god didn't look away. He needed to face this situation, face the fact this was mostly his fault and he needed to fix it as well.

"I don't know why he take the good doctor, not other than speculate. But I know why he took one of us. You can all think of that reason. To revenge us for stopping him executing his plan, that is." It was now Stark's turn to roll his eyes again and give them his take on the situation.

"Of course he took Banner. _Duh. _He's our strongest and at the same time weakest member hard to say so. He's the strongest because, well, because he's the Hulk of course. And he's our Hulk. He's the weakest because he's the easiest to catch, being all by himself in Timbuktu. And since he's the only one everyone has a weak spot for." He wiggled his eyes to Natasha, whom in turn only glared at him but didn't answer.

"Any idea where he could be? Maybe with a signal of gamma radiation or something?" Rogers ignored Tony's smug face and kept looking at Fury. Nick started to pace around.

"You can't trace him when he's not being green and scary."

"I was going to explain that, Stark, thank you very much."

"I beg your pardon."

"It's true, there's no way to track him by gamma radiation when he's in his human form.."

"You mean, when he's _himself_."

"Okay, if you wish Ms Romanoff.. When he is himself. But what we do know is that since we can't track him, he hasn't turned yet. So he's either still unconscious or being kept under control somehow.."

"Or dead. Hard to radiate gamma when you're dead. Of maybe he bleeds gamma radiation."

"Can you please zip it for a moment there, Tony?" Steve's face was flushed, finding himself at the brink of hitting the self-righteous and arrogant man in front of him. Stark only sniffed at ended up looking at one of the walls around him.

"So.. where do you want us, boss?" Hawkeye wanted to start with it as soon as possible.

"Here's the plan. It's for the best if you'd split up right now, so we can gather more information. Romanoff, Rogers.. you two go to his place in Mumbai where Loki took him, see if you can find any clues as where he has taken him." Natasha looked unhappy.

"Why did he have to go all the way to Mumbai to end of getting kidnapped anyway.." Only Barton snorted.

"Barton, you go search for any colleagues or friends of Doctor Banner that he may have fled to if he maybe found a way to escape."

"Thor.. think of anything that might give us a clue of your brother's whereabouts or further plans. Go back if you must. If you can find Loki, we can probably find the Hulk too." Thor nodded firmly, thinking that that was his exact plan also.

"Stark.. you join the guys at the lab, support them by finding out the substance we're dealing with. Maybe it's something more than a tranquillizer Loki gave Banner. Maybe it's something we can track or use in our advantage. It can be anything."

"Yeah yeah, okay.. I wasn't in the mood to go on a city trip to Mumbai anyway." All of them stared at him irritated.

"Whaaat?" Stark shrugged.

"Let's do this. For Bruce."

"For Bruce." Everyone was surprised that they spoke in unison, but none was comfortable enough making a remark about it. Instead, they all left without saying a word, executing their giving task. Only Nick Fury remained in the now silent conference room, a proud smile plastered on his face.

"You go, Avengers. You go. For Bruce."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5! Read, enjoy, love and share! :)**

**Special thanks to my reviewers! Especially Rhea Carmen; you've put a smile on my face. Thank you.**

Five: Whereabouts

Natasha sighed for the 100th time in the last hour while she kept staring outside one of the few little windows on the jet. They had left only an hour ago, right after Fury told her and Rogers to go to Bruce's apartment all the way in India, and so they still had some hours ahead of them. She didn't like to wait, being severely impatient all together. And now she had to sit still for another how many hours before she'd able to do something. She had gone crazy after about one minute after take-off.

She sighed again. The only thing to do was looking at the earth moving by underneath and to wander off to that dark place back inside her head. Usually, that place was occupied by memories of her kills on her so-called 'red list' and it was easy for her to wipe those thoughts out by hitting some Russian mobsters or other scum she had been sent to capture or kill. This time it was different though. This time the place was filled with theories about what happened to Bruce, the first one even darker than the next. She had come up with a thousand ways Loki could've killed him or even worse, tortured. The needle filled with tranquiller S.H.I.E.L.D. had found at his home didn't brighten things up either. Natasha had heard the rumours about the doctor's fear of that stuff, making the Other Guy even angrier, killing more innocent people in his presence. But it wasn't only the fear for the reaction of the Hulk. It was also the fear of being put away in a cage for the rest of his life, where everyone could do experiments on him whenever they wanted and to display him like a wild animal locked away in a zoo for anyone to see.

To be honest, it didn't sound that pleasant to her either. She already hated it when people tried to tell her what to do. Most of the time she didn't listen anyway or shut them up by using her own method and she didn't even have Banner's serious anger issues. To think about being kept in a cell for a lifetime.. it made her cringe uncontrollable.

She was forced out of her thoughts when a hand touched her shoulder. She looked at the direction of the owner of the hand and was met by Captain America who had a concerned look plastered on his face.

"Ms Romanoff? Is everything alright?" She quickly nodded her head, not wanting to show anyone her feelings. Ever.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, otherwise I wouldn't say so, now would I?" She snapped back but immediately regretted it when she saw the hurt in Rogers' eyes appear. He pulled back his hand and sat down on his own spot again.

"Okay. I saw you were shivering and became concerned, that's all. I won't bother you again." Natasha sighed. This wasn't how she wanted it to go, not while she would probably be stuck with the captain for who knew how long.

"I didn't mean to be rude. I'm just… not good in telling someone about my feelings and stuff, you know. In my line of work, it's a sign of weakness, and a fair disadvantage too. Can't have that."

"I understand that completely. But I'm not your enemy. If you don't want to talk, that's fine. I just wanted to let you know I'm here if that ever changes." She thought about it for a moment before searching his eyes to show him her sincerity.

"I'll remember that, Steve, I promise." The captain relaxed a little, for now content with her answer.

"What do you think Loki's doing to the doctor?" She looked at of the window again before replying.

"I've thought about it, but I don't know. I don't think he killed him or just didn't succeed yet since the good doctor already tried that himself…" Steve bowed his head, lost in his thoughts.

"Yeah.. that was some story. It's hard to imagine anyone becoming so desperate to see no other way out than to.." He couldn't finish his sentence when the visualisation of doctor Banner holding a gun in his mouth came to the surface.

"Sometimes, there's just no other way. You can keep trying and trying, but eventually some people come to the point when they think only one solution is left. Imagine yourself to have an uncontrollable rage that comes out and kills innocent people like it's nothing. Like it's actually enjoyable. If that happens every time your heartbeat only raises the slightest bit.. I'm just saying, it's not right, but I can imagine. I can imagine.."

"Yeah.." With that, both Avengers remained silent during the rest of the flight, not yet ready to think about the worst case scenario. After a couple of more hours, the pilot of the jet yelled through the intercom that they were ready for landing. Within no time, they were ready to leave the jet and they stepped into the jeep that was waiting for them. After another hour driving along in the jeep they finally arrived at a small street, hidden away in the middle of Mumbai. It took them a while to adjust to the completely other atmosphere. Everything was small, cheap, smelly and very old. When they felt ready, Natasha was the first one to enter the building Bruce Banner had called home for the last month, Steve following her closely.

"Wow." Steve said what Natasha thought when they took in the sight before them.

"It's.. small."

"It's incredible he survived till now." They silently worked their way through the house, looking at everything with a watchful eye. Even with being very thorough, they were ready within 2 minutes.

"Nothing." She sighed.

"We came all this way for nothing." Rogers collapsed on the only piece of furniture in the room and let his head rest against the back of the chair. Suddenly, Natasha was kneeling in front of him, absorbed in something close to him. He looked at her confused and followed her gaze. He slightly gasped when he saw what she was looking at.

The seat cushion of the chair was slightly pulled out because of his weight now resting on it, revealing a nasty stain of dried blood with a tuft of hair on top of it.

Natasha cursed in what appeared to be Russian when she grabbed the hair of the cushion.

"It doesn't have to mean anything. Maybe it's just.." Rogers was trying to calm her and himself down, but was getting the opposite effect.

"It's just _what_, Steve? Just a big pool of dried blood with some hairs in it? You know just as well as I do that a head wound causing him to lose this amount of blood, it can mean only so many things."

"Yes, and one of them meaning he's _not _dead. You can't keep thinking that way, Agent Romanoff. We must not think that way. Didn't Thor say Loki wanted to revenge _us, _not just one of us? I'm sure the doctor is still alive, waiting for us to come and get him. We can't give up now."

"Don't you see? With Bruce being dead, Loki does just that. Revenging all of us. Isn't Bruce the only one we all care about? Wouldn't we all be devastated when he isn't around anymore, doing some extraordinary things in a god forsaken country?"

Steve jumped out the chair and was standing in front of her within a second.

"If that was the case, Loki would've let us find Bruce somewhere, seeing him for ourselves. We haven't yet found him, have we? Loki doesn't see _revenge_ the way we do. He can only see the real revenge, the physical pain and hurt, our deaths probably. He will try to find a way to kill us all. And he won't succeed. He won't kill us, and he won't kill Bruce. Because we won't let him."

He was sincere and honest, and she knew that. Steve Rogers wasn't capable of lying. Natasha could hear the truth behind his words, but wasn't yet convinced. She stepped away from his gaze, giving herself another look at the little apartment. Some time passed while both of them said nothing and looked around, imagining the life Bruce Banner would've lead during his stay here.

Finally, she sighed.

"After a while it gets better, don't you think? Almost feels cosy even." He rested his hand on her shoulder and this time she let him. They stood like that for another while, occupied with their own thoughts.

"We'll find him, Natasha. Let me promise me that to you." She turned around to face him and nodded firmly, determination filling her up.

"Let's go find him." They quickly left the house without saying another word.

* * *

Although Loki had proven to be the Master of Lies, none of his words last spoken to him were untrue. Bruce fought against it, but failed again and again. The drug Loki was given him became indeed harder to bear and it took him all that was left of his strength to keep fighting.

His heart rate had become even slower, his heart now beating painfully hard to keep his blood pumping through his body and lungs. His breathing had also staggered and with that he had become weaker. Droplets of sweat ran down from his temples, sticking to his skin somewhere in the process. It was almost impossible to keep sitting straight, and with every slip he felt the chain around his neck tighten, leaving him with even less oxygen than he already had. It felt like the blood circulation in his legs had come to an halt and a strange tickle flowed through his limbs. The liquid wasn't that good for his skin either, the access point of the needle in the fold of his elbow now shining a furious red that spread already halfway through his upper and lower arm. His headache never subsided, only letting itself getting overwhelmed by the other side effects once in a while.

But nothing compared to the hallucinations Bruce was experiencing. Horrible images and memories floated around in his head, leaving him with painful thoughts about Betty, about his experiment going wrong, the Avengers.. about all the events leading towards this moment of weakness where he had let himself been taken. Although his mind was still clear enough to keep the real ones separated from the fake ones, the doctor felt himself being sucked deeper into the whole of insanity. He knew in the end he'd lose this battle for sure. He already thought about whether the Hulk would ever die, if he could be killed through Bruce's body, and during a lucid moment he could only come up with the one reasonable conclusion.

Everybody dies.

And although he would've giving up a year ago, he actually gave up a year ago when he had fired a gun in his mouth thinking he would die, he wasn't planning on giving up now. He'd fight till he no longer could, till the end of Bruce Banner or otherwise till the end of the Hulk. Because he knew he wasn't alone. He knew _they _were looking for him.

And every time he thought about them, he felt the energy left in him flaring up for only just a brief moment, but long enough to keep his fight against the physical and mental pain alive.

_They will find me. _


	6. Chapter 6

**Next chapter! Hope you'll enjoy and let me know so! Special thanks to:**

**Rhea Carmen: yes, you did. You haven't been refreshing in vain :)**  
**kyuubecky: keep reading, you'll find out soon what happens to Bruce**  
**ice cream 10: I'll keep going until my hands can't type anymore ;)**  
**Sharnay: please keep enjoying the story, it makes me happy**  
**Fozmonster: the word 'brilliant' makes me blush every time**  
**rowsdowersavesus: hopefully the waiting for this chapter was worth it!**

Six: The Journals

Tony Stark had been wondering around the perimeter of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters for a while first after leaving the conference room. He was seemingly lost, but in real was trying to find anything that could indicate the agency was involved in the abduction of Banner, though his search had soon been put to an halt when Nick Fury had accompanied him and led him to the lab where they were analyzing the substance in the needle found in the good old doctor's apartment.

Of course, Stark had been pissed when Fury had stopped his quest so abruptly, but all was momentarily forgotten when he entered the lab and got a visual on the now famous needle. He gasped in surprise and almost ran towards it without acknowledging the lab analysts in the room. When his hand reached towards it he heard someone scream and he looked in the direction where the noise came from.

"STOP! Don't touch it, you…" He saw a very angry looking guy in a lab coat holding a gun walking towards him.

"Don't touch it and carefully step away from the evidence, sir." Stark's eyebrow rose but did as he was told.

"Since when are lab rats carrying guns around and even threaten to use them?"

"The name is Jones, and I'm on surveillance here. We all need to wear a lab coat in here, sir. Can you tell me who _you _are and why the hell you came storming into our lab without following protocol and without anyone´s approval?"

"You want to know who I am, Jones? Well, I can tell you that." He walked towards the guard who didn't move an inch yet.

"I'm Tony Stark. Yes indeed, _the _great Tony Stark, also known as the Iron Man, the billionaire, philanthropist, playboy, genius, and so on. You should be put away for a long time for not recognizing me, you mister." Although Jones looked surprised, he didn't reply.

"And of course I came here to do what you all can't. Find out about the contents of that needle." Stark pointed towards the needle lying on a glass table.

"Which is _huge, _by the way. Hard to miss a vein with a needle size like that. Is such a thing normally used in elephants?" Jones looked very confused now, mainly because he didn't know if Stark was joking and because he had no idea what Stark was talking about since he was only here to guard the whole thing.

"I don't know where it is normally used for, mister Stark, since I'm not an expert, just holding surveillance. And I didn't get any orders or confirmation about your presence here, mister Stark, so I'll need to ask you to leave the room again and wait till I asked for approval of your stay here." Of course, Tony wasn't about to give in, and starting rambling.

"Whoa, Jones, you've got some nerves there. You really want kick out the Iron Man? You're sure you want to do that? First, I can do whatever I want, wherever I want, whenever I want. Wait, that's actually first, second and third. Fourth, you will never find out what's been in the needle without my genius mind. Fifth,.." Jones rolled his eyes before interrupting.

"Sir, I want you to leave the room and wait till further notice, or I can…"

"Or you can _what?_ Seriously, interrupting me? Not a good…"

"Sir, if you don't leave the room in…" Suddenly both men and all other people present in the room, whom were of course listening in on the conversation from the moment Stark entered the lab, were startled when a loud voice filled the lab through the intercom.

"Nick Fury here. Mister Jones, I hereby grant Tony Stark permission to do whatever he ought necessary to find out the usages of the substance in the needle and everything concerning that part. If he does anything other than that, do as you please." With a click, Fury's voice was gone and everyone's attention turned towards the two men in question. Stark smirked and Jones just sighed.

"Okay, you've got permission, but keep in mind you're only allowed to do that's what necessary. And put on a lab coat. Please." Jones tried to look sincere but somehow knew his treats were going to be pointless if Iron Man's reputation was only half as bad as the rumors had told him. Tony just waived his hand and mumbled something incomprehensible when he walked towards the first computer screen he encountered, grabbing a lab coat on his way over there.

He pushed the assistant working at the computer aside, but called her back again when medical terms filled the screen after he had entered some formulas. The woman looked irritated at the least, but returned anyway when she saw that the analysis had suddenly taken a turn after Stark's encounter with the computer.

"How did you do that?"

"What's your name, missy?" Irritation won over her curiosity again.

"I'm not a missy, sir. I'm Irene Autumn and I'm working here as a.." When Stark took in her beauty, he whistled softly before interrupting her.

"Miss Autumn, I apologize for my rude behavior, let me introduce myself." She didn't take his outstretched hand though.

"Everybody in this lab has already been acquainted with your name and function, thank you very much. Now can you please tell me how you've discovered the amounts of tranquillizer in the substance?" Stark's just shrug his shoulders.

"Oh, you know, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.. and _poof._" She folded her arms and just kept looking at him.

"I've worked with chemical substances and liquids before, Irene." Stark pointed towards his chest. "I had to, in order to keep myself alive to protect all against evil." He gave her a face before turning towards the screen again.

"But now come the medical terms, and that's something I'm not yet acquainted with. Would you be so kind as to help with that?" He hadn't yet finished his sentence when she already shifted herself next to him and began typing with a furious speed.

"Well, you just found out the exact component of the tranquilizer.. It's an extremely high dose of dormicum."

"And what's that? A lubricant?" It was Irene's turn to give Stark a look.

"It's given before a small surgery or procedure, like removing a mole or a colonoscopy, just to keep the patient sit still and relaxed. But as you've just discovered", she pointed towards a number on the screen, "it's now given in such a high dose that it'd enough to put a normal human being out of it for days. If such a person would wake up from it at all." Irene waited for a remark from the man standing next to her but didn't get any. She took a close look at him and saw something reflecting in his eyes. Was it hurt? Quilt? Confusion? She didn't have time to find out because that same man shoved her aside again, typing in more formulas in more different programs.

"What are you doing?" He didn't answer right away but kept working. After several minutes, he suddenly pointed towards some new numbers on the screen.

"It seems that there are at least three other substances in this material, next to the tormenticum…"

"Dormicum."

"Yeah, whatever, that mole-stuff." He closed the window with the numbers and opened a new one that showed a percentage bar, now filled for 1%. "I just gave a comment to search for elements that match the components of every sedative, psychotic and beta-blocker drug there's available on this planet. It'll probably take a while before it'll find a match. I'm going to take a nap right there." He started to walk away, leaving a completely startled Irene behind. She managed to utter out her question.

"But how.. and why those drugs? How did you know what to look for?" Tony turned around, acting to be irritated by her but in fact very excited to tell her how he did what he did and that he was great because of it.

"On the question of how, I already told you", he again pointed at his chest, "so try to pay attention. And why? Because it was something that was used by a psychopath who wanted to capture a man and keep him from turning into a huge animal-like creature. Therefore that man needs to be kept calm, hence the sedative. The green monster appears whenever his heart rate is high so the man's heart rhythm needs to stay low, hence the beta-blocker. And for the psychotic drug.. because the bad guy is a psychopath and craves on other one's pain. Now I'm going to take a nap. Please be so kind as to wake me whenever something pops up." Stark turned away from Irene Autumn again, a smirk on his face, while she was just standing there with her mouth open.

He walked around the room a bit, taking in as much as he could along the way but nothing could yet take his thoughts off his friend. At the same moment he was walking here right now, Bruce was probably being kept inside a prison cell somewhere, chained, alone… Tony had already figured out that there weren't much rooms or buildings that could contain a Hulk, so Loki must've had him under some sort of medical trance, leaving the good doctor completely at the mercy of that lunatic. Bruce was the only one of the Avengers who wasn't trained for combat, only that Other Guy, and without that Other Guy there was no one to prevent him from being hurt… Tony involuntarily shivered. So the man whom he now considered as one of his best friends, was at the moment being pumped full with several drugs in such doses they were for sure toxic. And there was nobody there to help him. Because Tony Stark had been thinking too much about himself and too little about his friend who in the last month probably had been in constant need of some love, some kindness, but got none until Loki took the last thing away that he more or less did have.

His freedom.

All his thoughts made him feel useless, powerless… feelings he hadn't much to deal with in his life. Tony shook his head in an attempt to clear out his thoughts when he came to an abrupt halt. In front of him stood a closet, a piece of tape that was taped on it read 'evidence'. Stark almost ripped the doors open, and to his surprise found a shelf with several items packed in plastic bags. A couple of vials containing what look liked blood and some hair, a pot filled with a couple of dead flies floating in some transparent liquid and…

Tony's eyes grew wide. With one shift motion, he grabbed the big plastic bags that held at least 10 leather workbooks, the bindings written with a handwriting Stark almost knew by heart. He dragged himself and the bag towards a small couch in one of the corners and dropped both down on it. In the corner of his eye, he saw both Jones and Irene Autumn looking suspiciously at him but neither attempted to stop him from what he was about to do. Nor would he have led them stop him of course.

He randomly took a couple of books. Two of them read 'BB III'& 'BB V', one read 'Hulk II'. Stark started searching around in the bag, arranging the books by the numbering the doctor had given them while he had written them. It wasn't a complete surprise to find only 3 books about the Hulk and 7 about BB, while one was called 'Other I'.

Stark took both Hulk I and BB I and opened both books at the same time, somehow feeling that the numbering of both series were somehow connected in time. He muttered quietly to no one in particular.

"Hi there Hulk, and hi there Bruce Banner, thank you for giving me the privilege to get to know you."

With that, Tony Stark parted himself from the real world and dove into the history of both the scientist and the monster who became one, until the moment they were taken against their will.

How the Iron Man wished he had never found out…


	7. Chapter 7

**And….. another chapter! :) Keep reading and reviewing please, it's fantastic to see you enjoy the story and to let me know what you think about it. Thank you for all my readers so far!**

**Enjoy!**

Seven: The Discovery

Clint shifted a little bit in his chair to face away from the window. He had his feet propped upon the table of the conference room and had been staring outside for almost an hour straight. It wasn't a real comfortable position, but only now did he recognize the extra stretch in his neck, his muscles starting to ache. He had been too absorbed in his thoughts to notice.

It hadn't taken him long to discover there weren't much people who had wanted to be part of Dr. Banner's life for the past couple of years nor had he found people he had been 'friends' with before the accident whom wanted to be reunited with the scientist a.k.a. rage-monster. It wasn't hard to locate the famous Betty Ross, although getting to speak with her had been a lot harder. Her father had been standing in the way, literally, and he had been forced to take some different measures to get a conversation with the lady.

So he had climbed through a window unseen, which had been a hard task since it was broad daylight, but unfortunately it had been in vain. She hadn't spoken nor heard from her ex-lover for quite some time and afterwards Clint had needed to comfort her for half an hour because she was sure something bad had happened to him. Of course he hadn't told her she was probably right. Of course he hadn't told her he was probably being tortured somewhere in a dark moistly room for god knows how long, unsure if he was still alive or not. Of course he hadn't… it was already hard enough to bare for him, let alone sharing it with a grieving woman. And so he had soothe her the best he could and had fled before she could start crying again.

And there he was, sitting in the big empty room, thinking how ironically the room resembled the doctor himself. The unavoidable emptiness that seemed to be Bruce's life after that one horrible moment. The size of the room, leaving so many space which nobody wanted to fill in. Half of the room was surrounded by windows, showing the exposure when he was the Hulk, while the after half was covered in dim lights. Barton still remembered Banner's speech about his depression and attempted suicide all so vividly in his mind, and that darkness seem to resemble those feelings pretty well. The only nice thought he could think of, the light at the end of the tunnel, was the door. No matter how bad he felt, no matter how hard his life could be… there'd also be that door that could open and let them, the Avengers, in to his heart and in his life. There was this opportunity, right after the succeeding of their mission, and they had all felt so close to let Bruce open up and embrace himself for what he was. But then he left, and instead of the door being open, it had closed so far till only a small space was left.

And now Loki had closed that door with a smash.

Clint was so focused on the door that he almost jumped up when it opened and Rogers and Romanoff bursted into the room. Natasha dropped herself on the chair next to him with a deep expiration, while Steve didn't yet quite know what to do so he just kept standing there at the other side of the table.

"Hi, Agent Barton." Clint rolled his eyes.

"Stop being so formal and official. Just Clint please." He turned around to face his partner and by the expression on her face he was almost afraid to ask how their mission went because he knew that face all too well.

"Didn't find anything, I guess?" She sighed again and leaned back into the chair.

"Nothing, nada, zip, zero."

"That's not completely true." Steve shifted.

"Except the big pool of blood on the chair which came from Banner's head." On the way back here, Natasha had try to leave Mumbai behind, keeping focused on completing their mission instead of rescuing a friend. It had worked pretty well, and soon she had retrieved her concentrated and stoic mind again.

"Oh."

"It doesn't have to mean anything b.." Both Barton and Romanoff threw Rogers the same look at the same time and Steve stopped midsentence. Silence followed.

"And you?" Somehow Clint had hoped she wouldn't ask, but that thought had been ridiculous of course.

"Nothing. No friends, no family, no one who knows or wants to know the Hulk. Even went searching for Ross, but she hadn't much to tell either."

"Doesn't come as a surprise."

"Nope."

Suddenly, the clear blue sky outside filled itself with a thunderstorm that only lasted for a couple of seconds. None of the three superheroes were startled though. Steve even walked towards the door to held in open and within seconds, the blonde demi-god stormed into the door and came to an abrupt stop right in front of the table.

"Oh. Hello there."

"Hi Thor", came in unison.

Barton scooped his feet of the table and Natasha sat up straighter. They saw the look in Thor's face and it almost lit up the room. He had to have some good news.

"And?" Barton couldn't hide his curiosity any longer. Thor glared around the room.

"I may have found something, yes. Though maybe it's best to get both Iron Man and…" But nothing more had to be said. Nick Fury entered the room and left the door open behind him.

"I hope you have something that could lead us somewhere, Thor." Of course Fury had been listening in on the conversation of the other three heroes before the demi-god had entered and so he didn't need to let himself fill in on the other details. Thor still eyed a bit unsure and agitated and the boss quickly understood why.

"Mr. Stark is on his way. He just found something before I asked him to come here. Shouldn't be long though." And he was right because at that exact moment, Tony made himself present by making many different noises that went from gasping till laughing and snorting at the same time when he walked into the room. His eyes were on a journal in his hand and he bumped straight into Rogers who didn't seem too pleased by it.

"This is so great, Banner has such a great humor! The way he describes the.."

Rogers cleared his throat.

"Ahum, Tony, maybe you could put that book down and pay some attention since…" Suddenly, Natasha stood up, the chair shoving away from underneath her making a screeching noise.

"Wait a minute.. Are you reading Banner's _personal_ journals? How is that being helpful at all except for making fun of him for your own pleasure?" All Avengers members present in the room seemed to have opinion of the subject and all of them started to speak at the same time.

"It is absolutely justified since it contains a lot of valuable information about how and when he transforms, what happens to him when he Hulks out and so on."

"How can that be funny?"

"It's not, it's the way he describes it."

"And how does that bring us any closer to finding him?"

"Guys, guys!" Fury's attempt at silence was fruitless. Thor's deafening smash on the table wasn't though. Everybody's full attention was focused on Thor again.

"If you all would be so kind as to stop arguing with each other, then we could let us all tell what we have found out during our missions." The arguments still continuing quickly died down and Fury demanded them all to sit down.

"Well then, let's be nice so we can make a round and tell our stories. Agent Barton, can you start?" Clint only shook his head.

"I found completely nothing. The doctor hasn't been in contact with anyone the last months except for us."

"Rogers and Agent Romanoff?" Steve looked at Natasha to silently ask who would speak up but the female agent had already made up her mind.

"We couldn't find anything useful, only that there's a great certainty Doctor Banner got a nasty head wound and that wound alone could already be near fatal." It took everybody a moment to take the information in, before Stark let out a sigh.

"Then we can count it in next to the drugs that are filling him up. Loki's probably keeping him in some drug induced state so he won't Hulk out just yet. If it's according to what he gave him when he abducted him it's a combination of a strong sedative to keep him calm, a beta-blocker to lower his heart frequency and a drug causing psychotic side effects to add some nice mental pain to the package. Oh, and all in near fatal dosages to stay with Agent Romanoff's words." The journal, titled 'BB VI', lay folded open on the table, Tony's eyes fixated on it to hang on for dear life.

"Shit."

"Then I'm perhaps the bringer of good news." Everyone's attention was again focused on Thor.

"Please enlighten us, Thor." Fury's encouragement seemed to be help the demi-god finding the right words and he spoke up.

"I went back to Asgard to find anything that could help us any further to find Dr. Banner. Through many people I eventually found a guard that had been threatened by Loki. If he would speak up about something he had seen, Loki was sure he'd find the guard's wife and kill her. He wasn't very willing to talk, but when I guaranteed his wife's safety, he told me he had heard my brother talk out loud after the doctor had given him a drug to keep him calm. He had talked about the hate towards all of us, especially towards me…" Thor looked down and swallowed. After a short pause when nobody spoke, too eager to hear the rest of the story, the blonde guy continued.

"But also against Dr. Banner, since he was the one who eventually conquered him, or his other side anyway. He wanted to let him suffer as much as he did and he kept muttering about the name of certain drugs that the doctors had already tried on him to get him calm when he got another period of madness."

"Let me guess… dormicum, metoprolol.." But Thor interrupted Stark.

"The guard couldn't recall the exact names."

"Please continue."

"He did recall the word he kept repeating for hours though. I hope it means something to you guys. It's .. Jafni? Jufni? Jafna? Something like that..?

"It much be Jaffna.. isn't that a city in the very north of Sri Lanka?" Tony jumped up, bumping against the table letting the journal drop to the ground.

"That must be it! That's probably the place where he either got the drugs or took Banner to." He had already arrived at the computer and started typing on two different keyboards at once.

"What are you thinking, Stark? You know a way to trace him?" But Tony didn't reply and kept working. After what felt like ages to everyone in the room, the computer started to beep. Iron Man showed everyone his victory dance.

"Did you find him? Stark, tell us!" Patience still wasn't Natasha's strongest suit.

"Okay, so I figured, wherever Loki is, must his sceptre be, right?" All present in the room nodded.

"And the strength of the sceptre is of course the little piece of Tesseract in the middle of it." Everybody nodded again.

"Remember how Bruce and I figured out where the Tesseract was? It had to be in a close distance in order to let itself be found. That little piece inside Loki's sceptre is of course even harder to trace if traceable at all. So I thought, why not try it anyway? So I typed in Jaffna and let the machines work, and voila!" Everyone had gathered in front of the screen now and followed the pointed finger of Stark that lingered on a flashing red circle. The circle surrounded a place on the city of Punkudutivu, a city nearby Jaffna on the island Sri Lanka.

"So that's where Loki must be?"

"Yes, and if my coordinates are correct, he's at the Vallan Ayyanar Temple right now." Rogers gave Stark a hard slap on his shoulder.

"Well done! So what are we waiting for?"

"I'll get the jet rea…" But Fury didn't need to finish his sentence. The Avengers already left, running towards the safe return of one of their own. Nick could only shake his head and smirk.

* * *

His body felt completely numb. Although the pain was still there, Bruce's brain stopped registering it for some time now. Little pools of blood had formed on the floor beneath his shackled hands, the arm with the I.V. in it looking red in total now. The ability to distinguish between real and fake memories and feelings had long been gone and he could now only watch how spiders crawled up on him while Tony was standing in the corner of the room, laughing out loud, pointing at him.

"You are worth nothing, Bruce. Only the Hulk is. You are _nothing_ without him." Every word stung, and his eyes were red and puffed from crying but now he was too weak to even cry. The only thing he did was shift from time to time, just a little so he wasn't been suffocated by the chain around his neck.

The scientist didn't look up when the door to his cell opened. It took him all his efforts to acknowledge and understand the words which someone was whispering in his ear.

"They'll come for you after all. Now let's get the party started." With that, Loki grabbed the needle and pulled it out with great force. Bruce grasped and contorted in pain, finally feeling the pressure around his neck disappear when Loki freed him from the chain around it. Bruce instantly went limp and fell sideways to the ground.

Loki grinned and whispered to a now unconscious Bruce Banner.

"Sweet dreams, dear. And when you wake up, it's time for some real action."


	8. Chapter 8

**For my dearly beloved: Rhea Carmen, livingintheshire, rowsdowersavesus, Zozeebobs, Radwoman, Project Zombie Shitshorm (loving your nickname!), Jcaptein, Myrrhmaid, Miss Uzumaki and Souzou the Insane: THANK YOU!**

**Apparently I've killed some people with the latest cliffhanger, so to compensate for all of the losses I've updated real soon! Although I'm not sure the end of this chapter will make you feel any better ;) **

**Please find out for yourself and as ever.. don't keep it to yourself. Let me know :)**

Eight: The End of the Beginning

"Wait!" Barton let go of the jet's door he already had in his hand. Romanoff turned around, agitated and ready to move. Thor was standing next to the jet, waiting for Iron Man to suit up so they could fly away together. Stark just entered the platform and took his place next to Thor.

"What's the matter? Why are you not flying away yet?"

"Just wait." They all turned towards Captain America, who stood some distance away from the four of them.

"Don't we need a plan?" Natasha moved forward again, now arrived at the back of the jet. Clint had already climbed in and the flap was now slowly opening itself to let Natasha and Rogers in.

"We don't have time, Rogers. We'll think of a plan on our way over there." Steve looked in the direction of Tony and Thor and saw Tony walking towards him. He lay his metal hand on Rogers' shoulder, a simple gesture in order to comfort the soldier.

"As long as we stand together and have you to lead us, nobody can defeat us. We've won before, remember? We'll win again. Together." Steve's eyes almost lit up, new-born energy enlightening because of Stark's words. He hadn't expected this from him at all and therefore it was even better to hear it. Steve also lay his hand on Iron Man's shoulder.

"Together." With that and a slight nod towards Thor, both the demi-god and Iron Man took off towards Sri Lanka. Rogers hurried inside the jet, the flap already closing again. Within seconds they also took off, on their way to reunite the Avengers Assemble once more.

* * *

_Some hours later…_

"It's actually hurting my eyes." The five of them were trying to focus on the temple in front of them, all of them squinting their eyes because of a combination of the falling sun and the extreme colors of the temple. The place they had gathered at, on a hill still some distance away from the temple, only added to the effect.

"Amen to that."

"You human people have an extraordinary taste as it comes to worshipping your Gods." Thor's comment resulted in a smile on all of their faces. Rogers was the first one to talk serious business again.

"We can't just walk in there in broad daylight. He'll see us coming from miles away."

"You're probably right." Natasha snorted.

"Yeah, like he doesn't already know we're here now."

"That could also be true."

"Let's not waste time and go in immediately."

"I don't think that's such a great idea.."

"We can split up, all take a side. We're all connected with each other through the headsets, so none of us won't be really alone."

"If we go in when it's dark, we have a better chance of succeeding." Natasha moved in front of Steve with one big stride.

"Who knows what he's doing to him right now! He's dying remember! What if we wait and he's dead, and we could've saved him if we went in right away?"

"Or what if he dies because we're reckless and impatient and go storming in now?" The constant bickering with Agent Romanoff, the stress of finding Bruce and the sleepless night because of that took their toll on Rogers. He couldn't remain calm and started shouting back.

"Quiet now, my rebellious children. We don't want Loki to hear us, do we?" Stark stepped in the middle of the two fighting heroes, putting some distance between them along the way. Thor joined in on the conversation.

"Let us not underestimate my brother. He is smart and angry, things that make him dangerous and unpredictable. No matter when we go in, we need to have a plan." Stark nodded.

"JARVIS, can you search for body heat radiation in the temple? Can you locate Bruce?"

"Working on it, sir." Tony saw a heat map appear in his vision and within seconds JARVIS came with an answer.

"There's one room where there is more heat than the other places, sir. Seems to have a warmer spot right in the middle of it. Also looks like it is beneath the surface of the temple." Stark had now a visual on that room with the calculation JARVIS made next to it. He indeed saw that the temperature of that room was higher than the others, while an orange/red spot appeared to be in the middle.

"That must be it."

"You found anything?" Tony pointed towards the middle of the temple.

"Bruce is probably right in the middle of the temple, or to be more precise, right _underneath _the middle of the temple."

"I still think it's too dangerous to go in right away.."

"And I still think it's too dangerous to wait." Before the two could get at each other's throats again, Barton stepped in.

"Let's vote." They all turned towards him and eyed him like he had gone crazy.

"What?"

"You won't agree anytime soon, so why not vote?" Iron Man smirked.

"I'm with Hawkeye." Barton smiled.

"Okay, so all who wants to wait, raise your hands." Steve's and Thor's hands rose in the air.

"And now who wants to go in right away."

"Uhh.. that's not really necessary anymore, now is it?" Barton gave Stark a confused look.

"O yeah, right. So we go in right now." Rogers and Thor sighed but gave in to the majority.

"So here's the plan. Romanoff and Barton, you go in from the left side. Captain, you take the back. Thor, right side's yours. I'll go in from above." They all nodded.

"Now let's do a group hug!" They all struggled, but eventually Stark's embrace won them over.

"Together."

"Together." Although it was but a mere whisper, they had said it. Together. Nobody dared to admit it, but it had felt good. Although they would be on their own now, they wouldn't actually be alone.

At least they'd alone together.

* * *

"You can't see your hand before your face." Clint whispered, already lost track of Natasha who was walking some feet in front of him.

"It's too quiet." Natasha stopped to wait on Clint, who bumped into her at once.

"Ow."

"Sorry." Both their headsets crackled and Tony whispered through their ears.

"Agents, the room is very close to you. Take a turn to the right, then after 20 feet towards the left and you'll walk straight towards it."

"Got ya." They both continued their way till the place where Stark had mentioned. Natasha noticed the metal door only an inch before she collided with it and she forced Clint to an halt with her arm preventing him from the encounter as well.

"We're here." She had maintained her cool quiet well until now, but the anxiety and fear for what they would find behind the door in front of them were now evident in her unstable voice.

"Wait, I'm almost there."

"Me too." Not long after, all of them stood in front of the door, none of them yet sure what to do next.

"We have crossed the holy temple from all sides.. nobody saw my brother?" None of them responded or at least it didn't show since it was way too dark to see anything besides the glowing light from Stark's arc reactor.

"What if it's a trap?" It didn't feel good to Barton.

"If it was a trap, we've already walked into it the second we entered this temple." Nobody could disagree with Steve's logic.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Thor held his hammer up high, ready to struck the door with it.

"Wait." Stark walked towards the metal door and grabbed the handle. The door immediately gave in.

It was unlocked.

This was it. This was the breaking point he knew would come. The anger and guilt tripled, his body now completely soaked in it. Bruce had been held in a room with an unlocked door. He could've just walked out or everybody could've just walked in.

His emotions exploded when Tony flew open the door, his armor inhibiting him from feeling the sudden heat wave that came out of the room which involuntarily let the others cough.

The sight before them was even worse than they had imagined.

Bruce was still lying sideways on the ground in an awkward position, the pools of blood now smeared along the floor and his already thin frame appearing even thinner. The entrance of the five of them hadn't bring any response out of him. They all feared the worst.

Stark ran towards him and kneeled in front of his face the best his suit would allow him. Natasha soon sat next to him and started shaking the scientist with force.

"Bruce! Bruce, wake up." No response came. The shaking of his body made the head wound visible to Tony, a gaping wound welcoming him. Natasha was yet oblivious for it and continued to shake him. Barton now joined them, his hand stretching out towards the doctor's neck to feel for a pulse. When he felt the ragged skin surrounding it, he pulled back with a reflex.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." He felt again, now prepared for the damage done to the surface of Banner's neck.

"I feel a pulse. It's… very fast." Meanwhile, Tony took in the rest of the damage, his eyes immediately fixated on Bruce's wrists still chained to the floor. They were almost completely stripped to the bone, still oozing blood in a slow speed. Two bursts of light came out of Iron Man's hands and both Bruce's hands felt limp to the ground. Stark started muttering to himself while Natasha and Clint still tried to wake the doctor up.

"Don't do this to me, Bruce. Just don't. I need you to wake up so you can tell me how stupid I've been. How I've been too selfish and blind to let you go, to think you could leave us all behind. Please wake up so I can lock you up myself, so I'll always have you near me. Just don't do this me, you hear me? Just don't.." He kept on whispering when suddenly a loud cough filled the room. Both agents backed off immediately as an automatic response, but Tony just closed the distance between him and the scientist while he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

Two red eyes looked up at him, pain and fear radiating off of them. But most of all confusion.

Before they all figured out what was going on, Bruce tried to move away from them the best he could, his bare upper body scratching along the stone floor, creating new wounds.

"Please… no more. Please." Their hearts sank. His voice could only just be heard, harsh and low from the non-use, the effect of his words leaving all of them to shiver.

"Just… kill… me…" Stark froze. This wasn't happening. He had completely forgotten about the drugs, unaware Bruce wasn't attached to any lines or drips. Natasha tried to calm the doctor down, to convince him they were there to save him, but the words didn't reach Bruce's mind. He kept begging and pleading, every word feeling like a slap in their faces.

Rogers joined them next to the trembling form of the once so strong doctor.

"I don't see…" But he didn't need to finish his sentence. Tony now held Bruce's right arm up high, the redness caused by the drip still clearly visible, the puncture hole oozing some pus.

"He got the drugs all right." Thor, still the only one standing, made his way towards one of the walls of the room and returned with the now empty I.V. bag in his hand.

"It's empty, but not attached to Dr. Banner." The conversation had gotten Clint's attention and he looked up to see the blonde giant holding the drip in his hand.

"Maybe Banner found a way to get it out?" Steve tried to reason. Now it was Hawkeye's turn to show the others the chain lying on the floor next to the doctor.

"His neck is damaged, and this chain was lying next to him. He must've been chained to keep him from ripping the I.V. out. Or otherwise he probably could've done it a long time ago."

"Then why would Loki stop it? And why free him from the chain?"

Suddenly, all gongs of the temple started to make a tremendous noise at once. The sound was so loud, it could be heard in their room underground. Within seconds, the ground above them started to shake violently, like hundreds of pairs of feet walked over it.

"What the hell?" The trembling stopped just as sudden as it had started, and a choir of hundreds of voices started to sing.

"Are they… praying?" Rogers understood nothing of it, while Barton just kept shooting confused looks upwards. The sounds in the room had died down and Bruce had stopped trembling, his eyes closed again. Natasha was still holding his face in her hands but looked up towards the others. She came to a stop at Tony's face.

"Tony?"

But Tony was too lost in his thoughts. He was staring towards Bruce with wide eyes, his breath stuck midway. They all started calling him now, but the armored man didn't respond. Didn't notice. In his head, he was repeating the last paragraph of the fourth chapter of both first editions of Banners journals about the 'Hulk' and 'BB'.

_The Other Guy has an amazing ability to heal, one of the many things that made sure nobody could kill him. A fast calculation from a part of my memory during a period while the Other Guy took over, I estimate his recovery rate is at least 2.5 times faster and more efficient than a normal person. I tested it by cutting myself in my arm, which also caused me too Hulk out. Surprisingly enough, when I came by afterwards, the cut in my arm wasn't any smaller. It had actually become larger, while I didn't remember having a wound while I was the Other Guy.  
To summarize: the Other Guy can heal, but only when he's already transformed. When I'm injured and transform afterwards, the healing doesn't work and the transformation only seems to worsen it. Also, injuries inflicted on Banner provoke the Hulk._

"TONY!" Thor's hammer hit Iron Man straight in the face. Stark immediately jumped up, ready to fight off his attacker. When he recognized Thor being so, he calmed down again.

"Why did you do _that_?"

"You didn't respond! Where were you?" Tony shifted his gaze towards Rogers and again, the paragraphs began to repeat themselves inside his head.

"Injuries inflicted on Banner provoke the Hulk."

"What do you mean by that?" Natasha was still holding Banner's head.

"That's what he wrote in one of his first journals. Also, any wounds he got while being Banner get worse when he Hulks out."

"So when he turns into the Hulk now…"

"He could die because of it."

"But why would he Hulk out?"

"Because Loki stopped the drip." Just when they finally understood what Stark was implying, Tony already saw it happening. He turned his face towards Bruce's head and everyone followed his move.

Natasha almost dropped his head when two bright green eyes were trained on her.

The room felt completely silent.

The praying above only grew louder.

* * *

**There's a big chance I won't be updating next week since I need to go on a business trip. I'll update as soon as possible!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Apologies again for the long wait, the trip took longer than expected. But here it is and to make up for it, it's a LONG chapter :)**

**Thank you a thousand times to: Questionable Answers, godsdaughter77, BeautifulShadowsKeybearer1317, krittle-v, Shara Raizel, lightwolfheart, VirendraZione, SingBenihime, Myrrhmaid, Miss Uzumaki, Zozeebobs, Linwe Ferland (thank you for enjoying!), JuneIsAMonth18 (yes, it is), livingintheshire, Check Again, Radwoman.  
Rhea Carmen: your prayers have been heard! Did it hold up to your expectations? :)  
BAMF Guy: thank you for your great words and your critical opinion, I'm very fond of your review. You describe my weakness perfectly. The first chapter is always the hardest for me to write. I'll definitely try to improve it, and don't be surprised if I'll PM you soon for your help with that :)  
LuxCordis: thank you so much. It's true, the first chapter is always the most difficult one. Just like I told BAMF Guy, I'll try to work on it!**

**Of course… ENJOY! R & R & Love!**

Nine: Confrontation

"Captain, GO!"

Steve, Thor, Natasha and Clint were still trying to comprehend what was happening in front of them when Tony already knew what they had to do. He shouted again when Rogers hadn't responded the first time. His shout was barely audible between the loud growls that filled the room.

Stark took a quick glance through the room and saw that the eyes of the other four were still fixated on the form that was lying on the ground. Stark followed their gazes and felt a shiver running down his spine. It was almost too hard to look at.

The form on the ground was half human, half monster. Bruce's eyes were the first to turn an intense green, the light radiating from them giving the room a faint green glow. Nothing much happened after that besides the load roars Bruce was producing. Banner's fists were clenched together and they saw him fighting against the transformation. The stream of blood from his wrists continued to flow in an even faster speed and Stark was almost certain the good doctor must have lost as much blood as a normal body could lose. The only thing he could hope for was the fact that the scientist had already proven to have no such thing as a normal body.

Despite his continuous struggle, Bruce was losing it against the almighty force of the Hulk, the green monster that had been locked away inside a weakening body, unable to let out his fury. That fury had built up and no one would be able to prevent the transformation from happening. The Hulk had to get out. And therefore, Tony knew there was only thing they needed to do.

They had to stop the Hulk.

In order to provoke the growing Hulk in the middle of the room, Stark didn't move but shouted again. This time, he finally got a response.

"GO, Captain! Go! You need to get those people out before he'll kill them all!" Although Steve understood what Stark was saying, he was very doubtful.

"But I can't leave you here! You can't fight him, he's too strong!" Stark tried to convince him his plan was the best option right now.

"We'll keep him here until you get all those people out of the temple, out of reach. We'll figure out what to do afterwards."

"But… you won't win!" Rogers looked desperate now, trying to figure out a way to prevent all of this from happening. All the while he had been staring to the floor, seeing Bruce slowly transforming into a big green mindless monster muscle by muscle, he knew there was no way to stop it. His eyes wide in horror, he remembered all these innocent people above them, praying to their Gods, asking the Gods for mercy and happiness.

All they got was the exact opposite.

And right then and there, he knew Stark was right. This could maybe not end well for them, all of them or one of them, and if Stark was right about Bruce's injuries getting worse when he Hulks out, he feared the most for Bruce himself. It all seemed for nothing. They were losing this fight for sure.

But at least they would die trying. And those people in the temple could still be saved, but it definitely came with a price to pay. And that price was theirs to pay.

Captain America took a last quick look around, taking in all of the people in that room in that moment. Including Bruce. It was very well possible he wouldn't see any of these heroes again. Any of his _friends_. The stern and stoic look of Natasha Romanoff, determined to fight till the last drop, either for Bruce as well as for the others. The guilt ridden face of Thor, full well knowing his brother and therefore indirectly _he _was the cause of this mess. The joyful look on Barton's face, since his joy of life was doing exactly this, not less because of the presence of Natasha by his side. The shining form of Stark, his glorious red and golden armor almost inappropriate for the current situation. Although he couldn't see his face, he was sure it was as determined of the rest of them. And last, he took a look down, and he'd have sworn two green eyes were fixated on him. Was it sorrow he saw in those eyes? Recognition? He didn't know nor would he probably ever find out.

He needed to go. Needed to do that he was made and trained for. Protect the innocent. With a firm nod, he starting moving towards the metal door.

"I'll be back as soon as all of them are safe." He stared straight into the blue lights on Iron Man's face, the place his eyes were hiding behind.

"Make sure you still alive until then."

"I doubt it, but I'm sure as hell we'll have fun trying." Far from pleased with this answer, Steve took a last glance in the room before running out of the door with full speed towards the temple.

* * *

_Ten seconds later…_

"So?" The combination of a growing form of the Hulk, who was now almost fully Hulked and filling up more and more space in the room, and the passive posture of Iron Man, Thor and Natasha made Barton slightly terrified. The only thing he ever learned was how to fight, not how to wait or flight. Not what they were doing right now. They needed to do something and fast.

"Ssst.. Don't move." The bow in Barton's hands was itching and he couldn't believe what Stark had just said. He started whispering though anyway.

"Why?" Stark saw the growing excitement in Barton's body, his hands fiddling with his bow and arrows, ready to strike. But they needed to wait. They needed to postpone as much as possible. In the ten seconds that had passed after Rogers had left, Tony had made a quick calculation in his head. If Bruce would entirely Hulk out, he would be too tall for this room when he would stand up. He'd destroy the ceiling of the room, which was the same as the floor of the temple. Since they were exactly right underneath the middle of the temple, a crushing floor would only mean one thing. And that was for sure the last thing they wanted.

"We need to keep still so we won't fuel his anger."

"He's already completely filled with anger, my brother made sure of that. How can we keep him calm?" Thor had been quiet all along, thinking about the tremendous guilt he felt towards his brother's actions, but he had realized that guilt would only be standing in the way of getting them all out of here alive.

"We need to keep him down. If he stands up…" Stark was interrupted by Natasha.

"The ceiling will come crushing down on us. And so will the people standing just right above us." It finally dawned on Clint.

"Oh." However, Thor wasn't yet satisfied with the answer.

"But how are we going to do that? We can't simply ask him, I presume." Stark inwardly smiled.

"We can always try. But if that doesn't work, which I think highly possible, we need to think of other ways. Be creative. Think outside of the box. Expand your universe. Enli…"

"We get it Stark, thank you." Natasha just rolled her eyes. Tony's speech had them momentarily forgotten their dreadful situation until the Hulk made himself known. He was surprisingly still lying on his side, now slowly making his way over to wall opposite the door. He placed his huge green hand against the wall, leaving the temple tremble in its wake. All four heroes kept silent and it almost seemed like nothing would happen.

Until it did.

His green eyes acutely turned towards the room and the Hulk took in the four humans awkwardly looking towards him. He took his time looking them over, almost seemingly scanning them to see if they were going to be a threat or not, until his eyes caught side of the mess in the middle of the room. The shackles were still lying in the floor, covered in blood. That sight brought back the thoughts of hurt and the green monster's mind went blind with rage. He roared an ear deafening growl and he pushed his massive form upwards.

"Okay, that didn't work." They all took their defending poses.

"Now what, Stark?" Stark sighed excessively.

"Do I really need to think of _everything?_" Their conversation was interrupted by the roar of the Hulk again though.

"JUST SHOOT!" Romanoff was the first one to put her own words into action and starting shooting at the green monster in between them. Soon, all others followed her example. At first, Bruce's green version was taken by surprise and their united effort kept him down for just a little time longer.

But it was too little too late. Hulk recovered from the attack, his green shield still unharmed by the fire hitting him from four different angles. He turned his head towards them again, holding it up almost high with pride. He showed them his teeth and filled with new rage, he pushed himself up and his head crushed right through the ceiling. The whole temple was now shaking on it grounds, pieces of it already falling down on them all. Natasha and Clint had to duck in order to avoid the massive stones falling on top of them, while Thor hit the stones away with his hammer. Stark was standing the furthest away from the Hulk and wasn't yet reached. But with one glance upwards, Tony knew it would only take a matter of time before the complete building would be falling right on top of them. The praying of the people had been gone already, and screams and cries could only be heard from a far distance. Stark smiled a genuine broad smile underneath his armor.

_The Captain got them out._

But now it was time to put his well thought plan in action. He had known from the moment he knew what Loki had done. If the Hulk would come out, no one would be safe. He needed to prevent him from getting out of this room so he wouldn't be able to get away and hurt anyone on his destroying path. As the Hulk, he would be invincible, and only one thing would keep him from killing anyone. The stone walls of the temple itself would trap him, of that Tony was sure. And he was also sure about one other thing.

He wouldn't leave Bruce behind. If it'd mean his end, he was going with him. He owned him that much. He was the one to blame, and no one else.

And so the rest of them had to go.

He made his way towards Natasha and held her up.

"We need to back up!" Romanoff looked at him confused, a small wound on her right temple now apparent.

"You said we needed to keep him _here_?"

"We need to lock him in." Barton overheard their conversation and stared at him in shock.

"But.." Stark interrupted him, because there just wasn't time to talk this through.

"We'll get him out afterwards! Now back up!" They did like Stark asked. Slowly they walked backwards, firing at the Hulk continuously while trying to avoid being hit by falling stones.

Stark didn't back off though.

When the others were yet far away enough, he turned around. They saw through his plan immediately. Barton was begging him with his eyes not to do it, while Natasha tried to run towards him. She was being held by Thor, who understood that sacrificing her life as well would be useless.

"LET GO OF ME! TONY, NO!" But Thor held her tight. They stood there, watching as Tony slowly raised both his hands towards the ceiling and fired. The ceiling came raining down and within moments, a wall of stone was forming between him and the other three, blocking their way to him. And to the Hulk. They wouldn't be able to get to them anymore.

Just when the wall was on eyes height, Stark looked at Thor.

"Thor, get them out. You know it's the only way." And Thor indeed knew it was the only way and so he nodded. When the wall had completed blocked the passage, he finally let go of Natasha.

"NO!" Tears were forming in her eyes, tears she had been holding back for so long.

"We need to go, Natasha. We can't do anything anymore. Let's go." She looked Barton straight in the eyes and knew he was speaking the truth, but she yet didn't want to admit it.

Stark had locked himself up together with the Hulk, so they could get out. He had sacrificed himself so they would live.

She didn't see the brick coming. Nor did Thor and Barton. The stone falling down hit her on the head with such force that she dropped down to the floor immediately. Barton ran towards her and tried to wake her, but she kept lying motionless on the falling pieces of the temple. More and more stones fell, indicating the temple was ready to come crushing down. Thor quickly scooped her up and ran towards the exit with Barton on his heels.

They were just in time to get out. The sky had turned black now, the darkness of the night falling over them. The moon shone its light on the falling temple, giving it an even more intense setting. They kept running and reached the Captain and the 250 drawn up people surrounding him.

Steve Rogers only saw three of his friends exiting the temple.

They all watched when the final pieces of the temple came crushing down, thereby completely destroying the holy place of the Gods.

And their friends.


	10. Chapter 10

**Many apologies for the long delay. Finally it's here!**

**Thanks again for the great reviews, it's so wonderful to see that your story is being read and liked :) Please keep it up!**

**ENJOY! **

Ten: One After Another

"Come on, come on, come on… Wake up now."

For five minutes straight, Clint had been muttering this same sentence over and over again whilst he was kneeled down besides Natasha. Thor had dropped her down carefully in the sand, but had kept his distance afterwards. He knew he didn't belong next to her, caressing her the way her best friend should do. He therefore stood a couple of feet away, awkwardly trying to give Clint and Natasha their space but at the same time trying to keep a watch in case the situation would change. In case any situation would change.

In case she would wake up. In case Tony and Bruce would walk out of the leftovers of the temple, happily chattering about some new science experiment. In case Steve would finally recover from the initial shock of only the three of them exiting the temple.

He shifted his gaze from the still form of Natasha with Clint by her side to Steve in shock to the place where only an hour ago, the five of them had been joking about the size and colors of the temple that was now completely crumbled down to the floor with two of their friends trapped underneath it.

He had completely miscalculated his brother's motives. When Thor thought back to that moment in his cell, the first time he had visited Loki after he had taken him back to Asgard after the ordeal on planet Earth, he had been so confident he'd convinced his brother to rule with him. To let go of all the evil that filled his body, and make room for all the love Thor and the people of Asgard could give him. He had misinterpreted the looks Loki had thrown him. Instead of the hatred, he had seen insecurity. Instead of determination, he had seen guilt. His mind had been playing tricks with him and had shown him exactly what he had wanted to see.

How stupid he felt right now. He felt himself being responsible for all of the events after that, because he had misjudged his brother's plans. He had misjudged himself. He probably could never look any of his friends straight in the eyes again without feeling the blame and guilt he so deserved.

Thor exhaled deeply. All he wanted right now was to look either Stark or Banner straight in the eyes, so he could tell them how incredibly sorry he was. But he probably never would be able to do that.

He would probably never see them again.

A loud cough interrupted his downward spiral of thoughts. He quickly turned around towards the direction where the noise came from, and the sight before him made him as happy as he could be at this moment.

"There you are.. Glad you could join us again." Barton was smiling a weak smile, the tiredness and recent events clearly visible on his features. His hands were holding Natasha's head, and she coughed again. Her eyes finally flew open, nd this also caught the attention of Rogers. Although his eyes were still bewildered, his voice lost for words to describe the train of emotions now riding through him, he could however moisture a weak smile as well.

Natasha squeezed her eyes shut again, the moonlight already too much for her foggy brain to handle. She tried to sit up, but failed miserably on her own and Clint was even trying to keep her down.

"Don't move, you could've a concussion. It's best not to move so much." Of course, she did anyway, and knowing her temper Barton sighed but gave in to her wish anyway. He slowly helped her up but kept close to her in case she would fall down again.

Romanoff opened her eyes again, taking in her surroundings, momentarily forgotten what had happened the minutes before that brick had hit her. She took in the guilt-ridden sorrow look of Thor and the shocked glare of Steve before letting her eyes rest on the remnants of the temple. Everything began to dawn on her at once and she saw pictures of those moments clearly in her head. The last thing that popped up in her head was the sight of Tony and the Hulk inside that temple, a massive wall of stones separating them from her and Barton and Thor. The picture doubled the incredible headache she felt right now and she quickly grabbed her head, immediately losing his balance.

Clint was there to caught her though.

"Wow, take it easy." She grimaced.

"Really? Take it easy? A massive temple has just fallen on top of two of ours and you tell me to take it easy?" She didn't get a response from Barton. Or Thor. Or Rogers. She tried to turn around to take in her partner and friend. She saw his defeated look, his torn suit, his sad look. When looking at Thor and Rogers, she saw his features in them. And she immediately understood why they hadn't responded.

Since there was nothing left to say.

* * *

"Whoa buddy, stop. It's ME! Your best friend!"

A load roar followed.

Tony tried to back off as much as he could, but the just-made stone wall prevented him from moving away any further. It truly surprised him he wasn't dead yet, either by the stones falling down around him or the Hulk smashing him into one of those stones. Neither happened, and the seconds were ticking away.

And Tony suddenly dared to hope.

He focused on the Hulk again, being the biggest threat at the moment. Although the green monster had been roaring and growling continuously, he hadn't made a move. The change of scene had probably taken him off guard, and now it seemed like he didn't really know where he was and what was happening. He felt threatened alright, the noises coming from his throat and nose making that clearly visible, but he didn't yet make an attempt to move.

Maybe, just maybe, Stark could make him at ease, make him recognize him and trust him in order to get them both out of here alive. He fixated on the Hulk again and removed the iron mask so his face was now shown. He took a tiny step forward but backed away immediately again when a load roar filled his ears.

Calming the Hulk down was definitely easier said than done.

He suddenly saw a huge brick coming towards him from above, and at the last moment jumped aside to avoid it from hitting him square on the head. However, the sudden move got the Hulk's attention, and with one swift motion, a green giant hand grabbed Tony around the neck and lifted him up.

"Whoaaa!" In an instant, his face was inches away from the huge green Bruce-a-like face, and Tony tried his best to not puke his guts out because of the awful smell that came out of the Hulk's mouth. The Hulk's hand was tightening his grip and Tony felt the air squeezed out of his lungs.

Now was the time.

He looked the Hulk straight into the eyes, probably provoking his anger even more by this. But there was no other way. He had to convince him now or it'll be too late.

With the little air that he had left, he started to speak.

"Bruce, it's me. Tony Stark. Your buddy. Your genius." The grip around his neck tightened.

"Bruce.. Bruce, please. Please." Tony stared straight into the fluorescent green eyes and saw his reflection in them. He saw himself hanging in the air, completely at the mercy of this giant that somehow was connected with the genius mind of his best friend. He searched and he searched, but he found nothing more than his own reflection looking back at him. No glimpse of Bruce. No glimpse of recognition.

He felt his last breath coming, and could only think about how great it actually would be to just stop fighting right here, right now. No more wars to fight, no more worries to have. He could die together with Bruce, and although he had failed to save his friend, he could at least die with him. Who knew, maybe there was an afterlife that could bring them back together. That could bring their bantering and laughter back like nothing ever happened, and they could continue to do so for eternity. He'd of course miss Pepper horribly, but she'd still be alive and could carry on with her life, getting happy again.

His thoughts almost brought a smile to his lips when he felt ready to let out his last breath. Just when he was about to give in, a gulp of air entered his lungs and he took the precious air gratefully. He looked back into those green eyes so close to him, and saw their look change. The Hulk let out a snort, and a huge storm came over Tony because of it.

His words almost deafened him.

"Hulk angry." Stark couldn't believe his ears. The Hulk was talking. This was it!

"I know that, buddy. But you don't have to be." Shining white teeth came to light when the Hulk growled again, however this time not as loud as before.

"Hulk hurt."

"I know that too. But I didn't do that. It wasn't me." Tony grinned, thinking about a thousand funny comments he could make right now but kept to himself so he wouldn't lose this tiny string of hope of a happy ending.

"Why Hulk here?"

"Yeah, why are you here? You should get out now!" Unfortunately, the green monster didn't make a move, but stared at Stark dumbfounded.

"Why Tin Man here?" This should be it.

"Tin Man here for you. To save you. To help you." Hulk's expression changed into dozen different ones, clearly confused about what to do and what to believe. But all of a sudden, he stared towards Iron Man again, and Stark could only let out a sigh of relief.

He recognized him.

"Tin Man saved Hulk." Tony could feel the tears prickling in his eyes when all the emotions of the last days came floating to the surface at once.

He had done it.

The Bruce inside the Hulk had recognized him, and he was safe.

They were safe.

He smiled a genuinely broad smile when he replied.

"Yes, Bruce. I came for you. And I'll keep coming for you, no matter what. You're not alone anymore. You won't be ever again." He looked at him, and the billionaire knew he understood. He starting laughing out loud when the Hulk smiled.

"Tin Man good."

"Tin Man good." They stayed that way, Tony still lingering in the air, smiling at each other.

If only they weren't in a temple that was at the point of breaking down upon them.

The falling stones came down with a faster speed. A loud crack filled the room and both the Hulk and Iron Man looked up in unison.

The ceiling of the room they were in had almost completely vanished and they could look up straight towards the doom of the temple. The doom was shaking badly when another crack alongside it made it start tumbling down without any obstacles to keep it from falling.

And it was falling straight towards them.

Before Tony could do anything, a green shadow suddenly blocked his view upwards. The grip around his neck disappeared, but a hand now gently grabbed his torso while he felt himself being carried down towards the floor. Another hand closed up around him, and now his vision was filled with green when he was laid down on the floor.

The Hulk used his body to protect him and he could do nothing about it.

"Bruce.."

He still heard the collision of the stones on the Hulk but saw his surroundings turning from green to black when he slipped into unconsciousness.


	11. Chapter 11

**Tremendously sorry for the delay, I got stuck with this and that and so on. Hopefully this chapter made up for it!**

**Many many thanks to: ****mjkstujsfthswrtjdykfukf, ****Souzou the Insane****, ****rowsdowersavesus****, ****livingintheshire****, ****WinterGarden****, ****Radwoman****, ****Ginshi-chan****, ****Shara Raizel****, ****Zozo890****, ****DarkKittehKat****! You're the reasons I keep on writing :) Please keep telling me what you think!**

**Enjoy, R&R!**

Eleven: Stay Together 

"I'm going back."

"Steve…"

"You can't stop me, Barton."

"You're only torturing yourself. It's pointless."

"Well, then it's my burden to bear. I'm not leaving them behind."

"It'll take you forever before you've dig through all that rubble. And even if you'd find them.."

"How do you know? Maybe they've found a cover somewhere. Or maybe the armor protected him. We'll never know unless we go back and search for them."

"If they would've survived, wouldn't they've found a way out of there themselves?"

"Maybe they're stuck.."

"Then they can't breathe and would've suffocated by now."

"Maybe they didn't."

"It's just a lot of maybes, Steve."

"Maybe should be enough for all of us."

"It's too dangerous, everything is ready to collapse."

"I can manage."

_Sigh._

Barton hung his head in defeat. He really didn't want to lose another friend after all they've been through. Going back to that temple…

Clint looked up towards the place where the temple once stood. Parts of it were still standing but only barely. The most damage was done to the middle, not coincidentally the place where Stark and Banner were standing before. It would be impossible to find them, and besides that..

Barton desperately looked from Natasha to Thor, but neither one responded to his questioning look. The people from the temple had long been gone, after the crash of the temple they had left immediately, probably already searching for a place to rebuild their place for the holy spirits.

Rebuilding, like nothing ever happened. At least they had the opportunity to start fresh. Barton was sure, the four of them would never be the same. And he had the feeling they all felt that way.

"Natasha? Thor?" No response came. Clint again looked at the defeated faces of his best friend and the demi-god, and suddenly became angry at their seemingly careless behavior. He finally let his emotions run free.

He pushed himself up from the kneeling position he had been sitting in for the last 10 minutes, and lurched himself towards the demi-god. His fist connected with Thor's right forearm and Barton got his attention all right.

Thor turned around in a second and moved his left hand forward, hitting Clint square in the face. Hawkeye immediately grabbed his nose with both hands, the sickening crack still lingering in his ears.

Rogers was taken aback by the sudden change of events but remained at his spot, some feet away from the others. He had started moving towards the leftovers of the temple before Barton tried to stop him. Why the agent had suddenly changed his attention towards Thor was yet a complete mystery to the Captain, but the other agent seem to understand it.

Natasha was brought back out of her miserable train of thoughts by the loud crack of bone breaking. She just caught sight of Clint moving his hands towards his nose when she saw Thor again moving in, ready to attack another time. She pushed herself upwards and jumped before the demi-god and his already raised arm, holding both her hands up in defeat.

"Thor, stop!"

"He started hitting me with no reason at all, I at least want to take my revenge!" He angrily moved closer towards Barton but again was held back by the female agent.

"Don't do this." She tried to give him her most determined stern face and she sighed in relief when the muscular man in front of her began to relax again. Clint wasn't quite yet finished though.

"O yeah, sure, why don't you start doing absolutely nothing again huh! Just stand back and wait, just like you did with Loki. You let him escape because you were too weak to punish him like he should've been. This", Barton strengthened his speech by pointing towards the temple, "is all your fault! You let them die, just like you let him come here the first time. It's your fault!" Tears were now welling up in both Barton and Romanoff's eyes. Lost in the moment, they were both caught off guard when Thor suddenly came crushing down on the male agent. Clint had no time to prepare nor defend himself and therefore, his head smashed into the floor with a loud bang and the agent yelped out in pain.

Blinded with rage and sorrow, Thor didn't see who he was dealing with anymore and starting using Barton as a boxing ball while the agent lay pinned down on the floor. Natasha tried to get him off of him but the demi-god didn't respond anymore and he proved to be too strong to push him off with her strength. Her headache exploded once again and she felt herself becoming dizzy, grabbing her head.

Until now, Steve hadn't interfered. He had been standing at the sideline, still at the same spot, like he was a bystander and this fight wasn't his'. Natasha's scream helped him out of that dream though.

"Darn it, Steve, do something!" The Captain took in the sight of an unstable Natasha Romanoff who was about to fall to the ground, and one of his friend beating the crap out of his other friend. His mind wandered back towards one of his happy memories, just after they had won the first battle against Loki.

"_Where's he off to, do you think?" Steve glared into the half-empty beer bottle in his hand before taking a look at the rest of them. Natasha, Thor, Clint and Tony were sitting in one of the main rooms of the Stark Tower, a room that was partly blown away, on the spare sofas Stark had manage to pull out of some closet that wasn't hit by the Tesseract explosion. Natasha had been drinking sufficient enough tequilas to finally do nothing but lay lazily on the sofa staring into nothingness, a smile plastered on her face. Clint just opened his seventh beer and was happily chatting away to no one in particular, the memories of his capture stuffed safely at the far back of his mind. Thor didn't seem quite as happy, being his brother that had been the cause of all the problems, but he seemed to be content enough to momentarily forget the past and the future. Steve finally looked at Stark and deep inside, he felt pride and respect towards the billionaire, although the feeling soon disappeared when he started speaking._

"_Probably the jungle closest by to blow off some steam. He fits into that environment much better anyway, with him being green and all. Sure the plants will take him in eagerly." Steve rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless._

"_Okay, but shouldn't we look for him?" Tony made a disgusted face._

"_Ugh.. looking for a Hulk who's blowing off some steam? Even if we wouldn't get rampaged by him, I'm sure we'll die because of the smell coming out of his mouth. You've ever smelled his breath? Well, I sure did. It wasn't the noise that brought me back to life, you know. It was his breath. All I thought was 'Does heaven really smell like this?' and so I woke up in case it was true." This earned him a honest laugh of all of the others in the room. Stark smiled contently and gulped the rest of his whiskey down before filling her up again._

"_He'll come back, I'm sure. He'll miss me the first moment he'd be Bruce again. All whom had the privilege of being close to the great Tony Stark, will never be happy again without it." Natasha suddenly seemed to come back to life and held her next tequila up high._

"_To Tony Stark, the perfect, rich, handsome and arrogant bastard who saved the planet and beyond."_

"_To Tony." They all replied in unison, including Tony himself. _

_Steve laid back into the sofa, a safe feeling washing over him. _

_They were safe. The world was rescued and all of them were safe. Soon, Dr. Banner would return as his normal self, and all would be like nothing happened. He closed his eyes and drifted off into a peaceful sleep._

How wrong he had been about everything. They were never going to be safe, or would anything ever be peaceful again. He figured that out the moment he heard about Dr. Banner's capture, but he had been holding on to one soothing thought. A thought that could make the difference between winning and losing.

They were together.

As long as they were a team, they could have a chance against it all. They all took the best out of each other, their strength accumulating in another's presence.

Now, the team would never be the same. Not only did they leave two of their teammates, two of their friends, behind in a temple that was about to collapse on top of them, they were fighting each other, not knowing the difference between friend and foe anymore.

Everything was falling apart.

Unless…

Steve shook himself back to reality, a clear goal now settled onto his vision. They needed to find them, no matter what. It was their only hope of a normal future, even if it was only partial.

His legs almost ached when he finally moved from his standing position. He sprinted shortly and took a huge dive towards the two fighting heroes. Natasha almost got hit herself had she not jumped out of the way in time, and Steve collided hard with Thor's body. The blow was sufficient enough to let Thor tumble towards the ground, thereby freeing Barton from his grip.

Romanoff quickly stood by Clint, who was now coughing loudly, spitting up some blood of his split lip in the process. In the meantime, Rogers tried to stop the other man who tried to turn his anger towards the Captain.

"STOP IT!" His loud scream was overwhelming and reached his destiny. Thor stopped fighting just long enough so Steve could get a hold on him, the demi-god now pinned down on the sandy ground.

"STOP FIGHTING, ALL OF YOU!" The other three turned his attention towards him, Thor still lying motionless underneath him. Rogers took the opportunity to continue.

"Can't you see? This is exactly what Loki wants! He wants to drive us apart and he's succeeding with everything! We can't let him win, then we did absolutely everything for nothing. We need to show him we can survive, we can survive _him, _but we can only do that together. We need to stick together!"

Steve rolled himself off of the Asgardian and stood up, holding out a hand to let the demi-god do the same. When he took it, he held him up but didn't yet let go of his grip on Thor's hand.

"Look at you, all heated up because you feel offended by your own friend." He let go and turned his attention towards Barton.

"And you! How dare you blame one of our own for this? It's no one's fault except Loki's!" Barton started staring at the ground, knowing exactly what Rogers was saying.

"Instead of blaming one another, we should let out proud go in order to protect ourselves, to protect each other. We need to bundle our strength so we can find a solution. We can't just give up!" He took another step forward, now standing in the middle of the group.

"No matter in what condition they are, two of our own are stuck underneath I don't know how many pounds of rubble, and we're standing here fighting each other. We can't leave them behind. We came as a team, we go back as a team. I'm not giving up on them, because I know they wouldn't have been giving up on me. They would continue to look for me, turn every stone, until they'd found me and could bring me back home. We owe it to both of them, if only it's because they would do the same for us."

The speech had taken a great deal of oxygen out of Rogers, and he was breathily heavenly. It remained quiet for another while, until Natasha finally dared to look the Captain straight in the eyes, a gesture he gladly returned.

"You're right. We owe it to them to find them and bring them home where they belong. I'm in."

Thor moved closer towards the others.

"Me too."

Barton still looked at the ground but nodded firmly, meanwhile using his shirt to try to stop his nose from bleeding. He took a quick glance towards Thor and saw him staring at him intensely.

"My apologies." There was no more to be said right now and Clint knew. He again nodded and Thor took his answer for now.

"Let's go."

* * *

Steve led the others towards the first stones of the fallen temple. The pile of rubbish was huge and from up close, the structure was completely gone. They all stood there, thinking about what to do next. Natasha was the first one to come up with an answer.

"We can be sure there somewhere in the middle, right? So what about blasting the outer parts away and from there continue by hand?" The others nodded, and she took a look at Thor.

"Would you do us the honors?" The Asgardian nodded.

"Tell me when to stop." Natasha replied with a nod and Thor started smashing the stones away with his hammer. This seemed to take the edges of off the demi-god, and halfway done he actually started to enjoy it. Soon, only the stones in the middle of the temple were still there, the rest safely moved out of the way. Steve continued.

"All take a side?" They silently divided sides and started digging. Stone by stone flew over their backs while they worked. None of them spoke a word, their thoughts momentarily focused on their task at hand.

An hour and many drops of sweat later, there was still no sign of the two missing heroes. Natasha started coughing, her lungs and mouth stuffed with sand and dust. She kneeled down and rested her arms on her knees, her headache even worse than after she had woken up from her blackout earlier. Her arm and legs were hurting, many little cuts indicating she hadn't been too careful while moving the stones. Her whole body ached and fatigue was about to take over.

Just when she thought about giving up or taking a break, she didn't exactly know which one, she heard a loud scream on her right side. She looked up and saw Steve looking down between the rubble and heard him screaming again.

"HERE! I found something!" Forgetting all her pain and tiredness, she rushed herself towards the Captain and saw Clint and Thor do the same. When she arrived and saw what he was pointing at, her heart skipped a couple of beats.

Between the rubble lay a large piece of fabric and she immediately recognized it as Bruce's pants. Before she knew it, she found herself kneeling down again, her hands now removing the stones with a rapid speed. The three men followed her example and soon they were working side by side, throwing away stone after stone.

After mere seconds, Barton suddenly backed off when his hands no longer grabbed stone. They looked at his hands at the same time and took in the third hand underneath Barton's.

Stark's hand.

She now worked even harder, the fear about what was to come fastening her pulse to an immense speed.

More and more body parts became visible until they had finally freed them.

Both of them.

They all stopped breathing when they took in the sight before them.

An almost naked Bruce was lying face down on top of Stark, their heads next to each other. Banner's back was unrecognizable, deep wounds covering the whole length of his back and legs, while his arms were twisted into bizarre positions.

Steve gently but firmly turned and removed Bruce, lying him next to Stark. Iron Man seemed to be intact for the most part except the huge cut running alongside his skull and face.

The weight being lifted off of him seemed to bring back oxygen inside of him, and Stark immediately let out a huge cough. All three remained where they were, too shocked to do anything. Without knowing, they all thought the same thing.

_How could he still be alive?_

Thor was the first to recover from the shock and bowed himself over the billionaire. He felt his neck to somehow establish if he wasn't dreaming, but did indeed feel a strong pulse rushing through his fingers. He removed the dust from Tony's chest and saw the reactor glowing ever so brightly.

Stark coughed heavily again. Natasha now closed in on him.

"Welcome back." Finally, Tony opened his eyes with a shock. He frantically looked around and became even more scared when he didn't find what he was looking for. He managed to stumble out a word.

"Brr..u..cc..ee.." Immediately, all three of them shifted their heads.

Taken in by Stark's miraculous revival, they had completely forgotten about the doctor. The one they came for in the first place.

Bruce was now lying face up and completely still. His front almost looked worse than his back. There wasn't a single place upon his torso that was untouched, most of his skin almost completely ripped off. His right arm was now burning a furious red, all of his fingers messed up one by one. Part of his hair was torn away, a gaping wound on his skull clearly visible. Sand and dust had made their way inside the many cuts covering his face and body.

Just when they shifted their gaze towards the massive wooden stick coming out of his right abdomen, they heard Tony mumbling again.

"Brr..u..cc..ee.."

* * *

**Please let me know what you think! I'm desperate to know!**


	12. Chapter 12

**It has been a long time ago since I updated. No apologies will do.. only a new chapter! So here it is.. Please enjoy, and please keep me motivated with your reviews and all!**

Twelve: Is It?

"Brr..uu.."

Natasha shifted her head between Stark and Banner, not yet decided which one she felt the worst for. The sight of Bruce's body, his torn flesh, his bloody skull, his arms twisted in the wrong position, that stick inside his abdomen.. It was almost too gross to look at. Of course the stillness of his form was taking most of her worries. But when Tony started again with trying to pronounce the scientist's name, failing every time he tried to while tears were streaming alongside his cheeks…

The sight broke Natasha's heart.

She kept sitting in between the two broken scientific superheroes, changing hero every two seconds while she failed miserable at keeping her own emotions in check. She got distracted when she saw Steve placing two fingers on Bruce's battered neck and she finally realized they hadn't even checked for a pulse on Banner. They didn't dare too. But now Steve was brave enough to do it..

She wasn't brave enough for the answer.

Therefore she just looked at him when he removed his fingers from Banner's neck and turned to her while she unconsciously asked the question with her watery eyes. She was shocked when the Captain's eyes shot…

Hope?

"I… I think I feel something? Maybe.. slow? Minimal… But I think I felt it.."

Thor now joined in, turning his attention towards the two. He kept his position, right in the middle of his two lying colleagues, so Stark wasn't able to see Bruce. Because if he would..

"What?" He managed to whisper his scream.

"Yeah, I think so.. can you feel?" Steve shot Thor a glance but Romanoff was faster with replying his question. She carefully placed her own fingers on Bruce's neck, her heart skipping a beat when she felt the damaged skin underneath her fingers, and held her breath while she felt..

One…two…three...four..

Bump.

Five…six…seven…eight…

Bump.

She shot up in a flash.

"Yes, yes, yes, I feel something too!" She looked at Rogers with happiness but the Captain didn't return the look.

"If it is.. it's way too slow…" He looked at Thor and the demi-god in turn looked at the female agent.

"Check for any breathing sign I guess?" His face was questioning but Natasha almost wanted to kick herself for not checking for any other vital signs. She bowed her head until her right ear was almost on top of Banner's mouth. She listened for any sound while she had a view on his chest to look for any rising of it. Coming so close meant she had a more detailed view on the scientist's wounds and she had trouble trying to control the shiver cursing through her.

After ten seconds she hadn't heard a thing, hadn't seen his chest rise. She was about the give up when a very light brush of air ran along her face, leaving as fast as it came.

"Oh my God!" She started to tremble violently.

"What is it?" Both men replied in choir.

"God.. oh god.. oh god…" She finally dared to look at them.

"He's breathing.. but very, very slow… like once every ten seconds.." Natasha saw the look of the two men change into horror when they finally understood.

"He's… alive?" Natasha nodded to Steve.

"Yes, but barely. Barely.." They kept looking at each other, trying to find a way in each other's eyes without knowing they were doing so. But they both knew the answer to the question they were so desperately looking for in the other's eyes. Steve finally started to ramble on.

"But.. we… I.. he looks.."

"Bad." The female agent finished his sentence.

"What can we do?" The three of them looked again towards the man who only hours ago was saved by them from a torture of sedatives and hallucinations, but turned to be everything but saved when they came for him.

Loki had his master plan well sorted out. There had been no way to prevent all of this from happening. The moment that I.V. drip had stopped, Banner had been destined to Hulk out and kill them all, after which he would die himself because of the wounds inflicted on him by Loki. The brother of Thor had succeeded for the most part. Stark somehow miraculously survived the collapse of the temple on top of him, but hadn't moved an inch after he had woken up, only stuttering the five letters of his best friend on and on and on. Tony had sacrificed himself for them, but even though they weren't that physically hurt, all the events had taken a toll on them, leaving them emotionally unstable and unsure of what to do.

But Banner was the worst. He had been tortured in so many ways for days on end. He had been starved, beaten and left at the mercy of a poisonous drug that gave him pain and kept him in a psychosis while he had no way to escape it. He had been giving hope when they had come to save him, but that hope had soon been gone when they had finally realized the real plan of letting him Hulk out. And now..

Now he was torn, battered in every place you could think off, with a wooden stick inside of him…

While he was still alive.

Was that the worst part?

No.

The worst part was that they could do nothing to save him.

They all knew moving him would open up all his wounds, moving that stick inside of him and rip open everything that wasn't already ripped. They had no equipment or knowledge to look after his injuries, no idea where to start. They can't remove the stick from him since it would definitely cause a massive bleeding and let him bleed out. There were so many wounds that their hands couldn't cover all of them.

There was nothing they could do.

Steve bowed his head while he rested his hand on Bruce's torn one.

"Bb..r..uu.." Tony's millionth attempt was the one thing needed to drive him over the edge. Tears were now freely streaming down his face, unable to say or do anything. He didn't see he had provoked a reaction of Stark, probably understanding him. Natasha lowered herself to the billionaire, trying to sooth him the best she could.

Thor and Clint only kept looking in shock towards the four people in front of them, not yet ready to realize that this was it.

It was over.

Thor was the first one to recover and moved Romanoff out of the way.

"We still have Iron Man to save. Let's carry him towards the jet and bring him to S.H.I.E.L.D. or the hospital nearest by."

Natasha nodded and started to work on freeing Stark completely, tears welling up every time Stark tried to resist and look to his right where his best friend was laying. His best friend he sacrificed himself for. But they didn't let him.

Soon Barton joined them, shoving away the rumble that was still keeping Stark stuck to the ground. Steve didn't move but held Banner's hand the entire time.

Just when they had moved all the rubbish from Stark's body, a distant sound reached their ears. They all stopped for a moment, turning towards the direction the sound came from. At first they couldn't see, their eyes blinded by the sun shining directly towards them. But when the sound became louder and louder, indicating the object coming closer, it started to take shape and all their mouths fell open at once.

It was a chopper. Coming straight at them.

None of them moved while the chopper touched the ground only a few feet away from them. The noise almost deafened them, but still none of them moved an inch but kept staring towards the helicopter and the three people rushing out of it like it was a fata morgana and their minds were playing tricks on them.

Two of the people carried a gurney and rushed towards Banner as quickly as possible. They kneeled beside him and started working on him at once, not even bothering removing Steve's hands from Bruce's. When they recovered from the sight of the two doctors covering Bruce's mouth with an oxygen mask while trying to put in an I.V. in his more or less unharmed arm, they stared towards the third man walking to them with a slower pace. The man was wearing only black, a long leather black jacket whirling around him because of the wind. When they took in the man's face, their eyes grew wide while they noitced the black eye patch.

Clint finally managed to stumble it out.

"Furrr… Fury?" Nick Fury was standing in front of them now, looking down at the six heroes of his Avengers team.

"Yes, it's me Agent Barton."

Natasha joined the conversation.

"How.. how did you..?" But Fury didn't let her finish his sentence.

"When you all rushed out so fast when you'd find Banner's location, it felt too good to be true for me. So I went to Ms. Potts and she shared my concern for both her loved one as well as his friends. So she programmed JARVIS to give us an update every 30 minutes, and when we didn't hear anything from him, we came here thinking you'd need help." Fury's eyes switched to the two scientists on the ground, his face suddenly turning paler, his eyes shooting out fear. Fear for the worst.

"What happened?" But no one responded to his question. Suddenly, one of the doctors rushed by them, kneeling down on the other side. He checked on Stark and all of them just numbly waited while the doctor seemed to work his magic. He moved towards Stark's face while approaching him a bit more.

"Sir? Sir, can you hear me?" Tony only shifted his head and torso a little, but then looked towards the doctor's friendly face.

"Ye..s.. How..'s..?"

"We're doing the best we can for your friend, sir. Just try to stay calm for me okay? Can you do that?" Although anger was clearly showing off of Stark's face, the armored man nodded slightly, probably understanding he was only getting any sort of answer when he was willing to cooperate. The doctor couldn't withhold his sigh of relief.

"Good, that's good. Now, do you have any trouble breathing? Any pain?" Tony looked around, taking in all of his colleagues' faces, guilt-ridden and sad. But from their looks, he knew they were not going to say anything. Probably thought he was better off not knowing what was happening to Bruce.

Why didn't they just say it? He was pretty sure he couldn't handle the truth if the worst case scenario had come true, but he still had the right to know. Still needed to know if it was yet the time to start blaming himself for everything that had happened. From letting his best friend leave his sight without even bothering to come after him up until this very freaking moment where he was lying pinned down on the floor of an once very colorful temple, not knowing the faith of the man he was willing to sacrifice everything for. And if that meant he himself was still alive and Bruce wasn't..

That meant he hadn't given everything yet.

The insisting voice of the doctor talking above him brought him back from his trail of thoughts and he tried to focus on the guy wandering above him, a task that was very hard to do. Just like talking.

Why the hell was he having so much trouble talking?

Maybe it was because.. Tony tried to take in a deep breath which immediately proved his point when he winced in pain and tried to suppress the cough.

Yep, definitely broken.

"Pa..in.. chest.."

"Okay, okay, take it easy. You probably have some broken ribs."

Tony tried to give the doctor a dumbstruck face but failed miserably with the pain still cursing through him.

"Anything more?" Iron Man tried to calm his racing mind in order to feel possible injuries and immediately regretted he had done it. A full blown headache popped up while the doctor above him suddenly grew an extra head. With success he could keep the upcoming nausea at bay in order to scan the rest of his body for injuries with his head. Suddenly, his eyes shut open, fear radiating through them.

"What? What is it?"

"I…" He sensed the others shifting towards him, their worried eyes somehow filled with even more worry now while they were trying to catch his answer.

"Can..'t.. feel… legs." He heard a female voice gasp and saw the doctor moving out of his sight. He didn't feel anything but he assumed the guy was working on his feet and legs, trying to get a response out of him. But the last thing he could feel was the heavy armor of his suit resting on his waist, beyond that point everything was numb. Gone.

Was he..?

But any worries about his own faith were acutely pushed to the back of his head when he saw a gurney being hauled up, carrying Bruce. He couldn't see his friend's face or anything besides the red arm falling off the side of the gurney, numbly and without any resistance.

His whole body filled with panic again when he saw Bruce being taken away and carried towards the waiting chopper as fast as possible. But when his eyes caught sight of the wood sticking out of Bruce's body….

His body started to shiver uncontrollably and soon he felt his body jerk against the two pair of hands pushing him back down. The presumably comforting words of the Captain didn't reach him, his eyes still locked on the limb body being covered into the chopper.

He didn't bother asking anymore because he knew. He finally knew the answer to the question that had been haunting him for the past few days.

Tony gave in to the darkness that was slowly surrounding him when the fact finally hit him.

Bruce Banner was dead because of him.


	13. Chapter 13

**No apology can be enough for the simple fact that I didn't continue with this story any sooner than now.. Lack of motivation, inspiration, time.. you name it and I've had it. So please just accept this next chapter and start reading it! Of course, reviews are more than welcome and actually quite necessary! So let me know what you think of it :) **

**R&R!**

Thirteen: No, Go

´Shh, take it easy, take it easy now." With only his eyes fluttering open, frantically looking around to search his surroundings while the rest of his body was completely still, he made a disturbing appearance. A sudden spike of his pulse had indicated he was gaining some awareness, a hopeful sign after so many days of steady beeps, unconsciousness and uncertainties. It was the moment they had hoped for, although looking at him right now she wasn't so sure anymore..

How was he going to respond to everything?

Her gentle, fragile hand caressed his face, his skin pale against the colour of her hand. His eyes were still looking around with an incredible speed and she wasn't sure if he was taking in any details or if he was just searching for something in particular.. or someone, probably.

She led him search for a while longer while she kept still by his side, the panic that was so clear on his face hurting her more and more with every second that passed. She had hoped for a surge of relief when the moment came he'd wake up, although deep down she knew it was fruitless to hope for things like that with him. Posing as an selfish arrogant man, she knew he was exactly the opposite, thinking about his friends first, himself later. Not many people could see through him like that, but he had let her by letting her into his life, and she had seen right away. He was as selfless as everyone thought him selfish and over the course of time, she had joined him with enjoying the task of keeping his image intact.

Just as a tear escaped from her eye, one of many since the last days, his gaze finally focused on her and a very faint smile appeared on his face. She replied his' with a giant smile of her own while quickly wiping the tear away.

"Hey there, babe. How are you feeling?"

"Have had better days, I guess." His voice was low and harsh of the non-use, but besides that he didn't seem to have much problems with his speech.

"You sure have." She smiled again while moving her hand up towards his hair and started to strike through it.

"I'm so glad you finally woke up." He didn't reply to that, but simply continued to stare at her, taking her in for the first time. Her eyes red-rimmed and the bags under her eyes indicated he had been out for a while, meaning she had been by his side for a while too. Again, a faint smile crossed his face.

"I bet I'm looking at least as good as you do." She genuinely laughed at that.

"I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable by looking splendid."

"You always look splendid." Startled, she met his eyes and she saw that the smile had disappeared, a sincere and concerned look now plastered on his face. She looked him in the eyes once more and couldn't help but silently cry again. His expression didn't change but simply kept staring at her. Through her.

"You shouldn't worry about me so much." Now it was her turn to startle him by suddenly cupping his face in her hands and kissing him deeply and passionately. Although he didn't respond much to her touch, he didn't struggle either and she was more than content with it. She knew she was being selfish by claiming him immediately after he had woken up, waiting just a little bit longer to tell everything else, keeping him as happy as he could be right now. She should tell him everything that had happened during his time in the unconsciousness world, but she couldn't.

Not just yet. Not just now.

Their lips parted, but she left her face lingering above his' a while longer. She took in his beautiful eyes and hair, the perfect skin lines alongside his cheeks, the beginning of a beard that had formed itself during his mental absence, the single cut than run next to his right ear.. And she couldn't help but smile.

How glad she was to see him again.

"I thought my waking up was reason to stop crying, not start again." His words broke her trail of thoughts and she created some distance between them again.

"I'm sor.."

"No." He met her eyes again, the worrisome look still there. "You're not going to say sorry. Not to me." She simply nodded, carefully trying to get rid of the huge lump in her throat. She reached out to his nightstand and took the glass of water and straw from it.

"You'd like some water?" The thought of water suddenly made his throat feel like sandpaper and he quickly answered positively. While she brought the glass towards him, he tried to sit up a little straighter, finding it incredibly hard to do so.

"No!" He looked at her curiously, not knowing what she meant and he continued to try to sit up. Suddenly, two hands pushed him backwards onto the bed with way to much ease and he couldn't do anything else but oblige.

"Wha.. What is it?"

"Don't move!" All of a sudden, his scrambled brain remembered the seconds before he had blacked out and if he'd been able to, he would've hit himself on the head for his stupidity.

_Why didn't he even think about why he was in this sterile white bed in the first place?_

For the first time, he took a look down towards the rest of his body to take in the damage done. Of course, his body was covered with sheets and he tried to lift his arms in order to remove them. Again, two hands stopped him from moving.

"Don't move." All of the politeness had gone from her voice and he found her eyes to search for an explanation.

"Why? I want to know how I look."

"But the doctors told me it's best if you don't move." He simply just stared at her.

"Don't move? At all?"

"At all."

He laid his head against the pillow again, his inner self more relaxed about what was to come than he had ever been.

"What does it matter? Isn't the damage already done?" She stared at him, speechless.

"I,.. wha.."

"Just let me have a look."

"No, you can't.." He rolled his eyes.

"Pepper, I'm not stupid. I know I'm paralyzed, and I don't give a shit. I just want to look."

With that, he again started to lift his arms to continue his task where he had left off before his girlfriend's interruption. A firm hand pushed him back and remained on his chest leaving him unable to move at all. Again he looked at her, deep down amazed about the strength she had in her.

"Pep.."

"I'm telling you, you're not moving and you'll not move until I tell you the whole story." Their eyes met and when she saw absolutely no emotion reflected in his eyes, her heart broke right then and there. This time when he spoke up, she let him talk.

"I already know the whole story. I'm paralyzed, I'll never be able to move my legs again, but I should be grateful that I'm still alive, right? Grateful that I've been saved and I've woken up, that I could start living my life again although now with an extra handicap besides my social incapability everyone always seems to have so much trouble with. Well, I'm sorry Pepper, but I'm not grateful. I'm not grateful one bit. And you know perfectly _why_ I'm not. I went on a mission to save a friend, my only friend, and ended up killing him instead. And not just killing him, no, killing him even more painfully than his _worst _enemy had planned to. I made him save my life instead, jumping on top of me while a whole temple of stone and glass was about to fall on top of us. And I couldn't do shit about it, and now I'm alive and he's dead. I'm crippled but alive, and my only friend is dead. Hooray."

During his speech, Pepper had retreated back to her post of the last days, her arms and legs crossed, her face as far away from the bed as the chair back allowed her too. When he was finally done, she didn't move, didn't look at him but gave a simple but clear answer.

"No."

"Pepper, you don't have to lie to me, you know I can handle the truth, I.."

"No."

"Whatever, keep on going, but if you don't mind, I'll go see my legs now if that's alright."

"NO!" The extra force that came along with the two-letter word finally got his attention.

"Tony… let's do this the fair way. I let you talk, now you let me talk, alright?" He didn't immediately reply, but after a couple of seconds of considering, he finally laid back down and answered with his silence.

"Okay, now I'll tell you my version. And you may or may not believe it, but if it matters to you at all, I swear I'm telling the truth as I know it."

Again, no reply.

"Yes, you're paralyzed. B.." Her confirmation made him start anew with his attempt to sit up straight and remove the sheets from his body.

"Don't be such a child, Tony. You just agreed to let me finish." After another couple of seconds of deadly silence, he acknowledged she was right and stopped moving. Pepper sighed before continuing.

"So, as I was telling you, you're paralyzed. But there's a big chance you're not permanently paralyzed. When..", Pepper swallowed before she found her voice again, "when you were found under the temple by the others, you didn't have much rubbish on you like stones and glass but just like you said, you were… covered from that. The only thing that happened is that the collision with you and your… cover… made you hit your back hard on the ground with your suit. So the doctors started making scans and all and found out that your spinal column wasn't broken or moved but just bruised. You've got a bruised back, Tony, and the swelling around the bruises paralyze your spinal cord. But if the bruising disappears again when you're recovered a bit more.. than you could walk again. _Could_ walk, so no promises, but with intense therapy you could walk again.."

A deadly silence followed and Pepper had to look at him to find out how he'd taken the news she just told him. She was almost too scared to look and she had every right to be, because his face was as stoic as it was before. No movement, no emotion crossed his face, not even a blink of his eyes betrayed anything that was going on in his head right now. After a minute of waiting for his answer, she couldn't handle the silence anymore and started to provoke a response.

"Tony, sweety.. please say something."

No reply.

"Isn't it good news, Tony? You can get your legs back.. you can start driving ridiculous expensive cars again, fly around in your suit, jog, walk.. isn't that great?"

Still no reply.

Pepper moved her body and hand and closed the distance between them again. She gentle laid her hand on his', just like she had done when he'd woken up, and he finally responded.

He shoved his hand away which made her startle and move back. The gesture felt like a dagger was being shoved through her heart and she couldn't help but start to cry again.

"Tony, please.. don't do this. Don't shut me out like everyone else.." Finally, his silence was broken by a sigh and she found the courage to look at him again. The horrible glare finally broke her.

"I don't care if I can ever walk again! I don't give a shit! The only good thing about it is that I can now _walk _to hell instead of roll myself. Can't you just simply understand? I don't care, because I KILLED HIM!"

"You didn't."

Two pairs of eyes suddenly turned towards the only door of the room which was now partially opened. Neither one of them had taken notion of the man that stood in the doorway, his body leaned against the doorpost while his arms were crossed.

He remained at his post while he let the news sink in with the two people in the room while his eyes focused on the pale, fragile guy in the bed. His patience finally won when that man stumbled out the only word he could find.

"What?"

"Do you want me to repeat it?"

"What?"

Without moving, Steve Rogers made himself very clear and said:

"Tony Stark, you did not kill Bruce Banner."


End file.
